The Boys of Crowhill
by tbll57
Summary: The note pinned to his collar read 'Harry J Potter - please accept'. The Dursleys had left him with nothing else but a pillow sack with half a sleeve of McVities biscuits, a mealy apple, and ten pounds. (Part One of the "Crow Rides A Pale Horse" Series)
1. Professor Lupin

**Chapter 1: Professor Lupin**

 _In Which Something Doesn't Happen, and Quite A Lot Else Does._

Professor Lupin paused in the aisle and tapped the book Marcus propped up on his desk. 'I'll have that comic, thank you, Mr Winston.'

Harry pencilled his answer carefully in the blank space. He wasn't entirely certain of his maths, though he hardly ever was. Professor Lupin leant over to review his work on his way through the desks, and touched a blunt fingernail on the second line of the equation. 'Negative integer, Mr Potter,' he murmured, and nodded as Harry quickly erased both his mistake and the incorrect sum. Professor Lupin's warm hand lingered on his shoulder for just a moment before he moved on, completing his turn about the classroom.

'Quizzes forward,' Lupin called, just as the bell rang. 'The exercises at the close of Chapter Four for your homework- no, Mr Winston, you may not have your comic back til after classes, see me at supper. No running, Clement!'

Harry stuffed his notebook and pencils into his bag and hurried to the front. He dropped his quiz onto the ragged pile on Lupin's desk. 'Sir?' he asked.

Lupin wiped the blackboard, dusting his sleeve with chalk for at least the third time that day, judging by the whiteness of the smudge. 'Yes, Mr Potter?'

'I heard there was parents coming today.'

'Heard that there _are_ parents coming today,' Lupin corrected, and Harry nodded without much minding it; Lupin was like that. 'Yes, I believe there's a planned visit.'

'Who you think they're here to look at?'

Lupin sat in his creaking chair. He began his marking immediately, using the blue ink pen which always wrote encouraging comments in the margins, even for failing tests. The first one was a failer, Harry saw, Eddie Bannister, who got an 'X' beside each equation and a 'Good try' at the top right. 'I don't think they've settled on a placement,' Lupin told him, looking up through a fringe of greying hair. 'But you shouldn't be distressed. Fostering is a lengthy process.'

'I know.' Even when people came for a boy it could be months getting him out of Crowhill. Sometimes the boys came back after a while. The youngest boys got adopted, though, and they never came back. There were nine boys younger than Harry in Crowhill just now, with Jimmy the oldest of those, seven in two weeks. Jimmy was small, though, enough to pass for younger, and Harry had been after him to practise his recital. He could do God Save The Queen and three Rugby Union songs and six entire Christmas carols, though it wasn't near enough to Christmas to bring it up naturally on the parents' walkabout. But it was always better to have a hook, and if Jimmy had a chance, Harry would make sure he got it.

Lupin sat looking at him for a long minute, tapping the point of his biro against Sam Jenkin's quiz. Sometimes Lupin looked at the boys like he could read minds, and he did always seem to know when trouble was brewing, but this wasn't trouble. This was important.

'They'll be here at four,' Lupin said then, and wrote 'Well done' at the top of Sam's quiz. 'If you need time for a bit of spit and polish, I would write you a pass.'

'Sir? Thank you.'

Lupin unlocked his desk drawer for the proper form, the yellow photocopies. He penned Harry's name on the form, and paused with his biro raised. 'The other name?'

'Jimmy,' Harry whispered. 'Jimmy Aberdeen.'

Lupin wrote that as well, and signed his own swooping RJL at the bottom. Harry pocketed it and turned to go- he'd have to get Jimmy before the bell for next class rang.

'Harry,' Lupin said, as he hurried for the door, 'good luck.'

But it wasn't to be. The parents came, and they looked nice, spruce folks in nice clothes and smiles at all the right times. They talked to lots of the boys, and had tea with Headmaster Jones, and they stood in the yard and watched during play hour. Harry sent Jimmy to play near them with one of the tricycles- Jimmy didn't know how to ride, and Harry felt a fierce surge of hope when the man in the suit crouched by him in the sand to ask if he wanted any help. They were at it for twenty whole minutes, laughing and having a good time, and Jimmy even managed to get out half of a Rugby Union hymn, but when the bell rang the parents went inside, and they were gone before supper. Crowhill Boys Home sank back into routine with a sigh that Harry felt almost as a physical blow. The boys went moody and quiet, and even the teachers walked with a little less spring in their step, but nothing else much. That was just how it went.

Professor Lupin had charge of the older boys for evening study in the mess hall, and set them all to reading with their partners. They were meant to be working through _Antony and Cleopatra_ , but most everyone were just talking or doodling or staring mindlessly at the television, playing the nightly news. Professor Lupin said it was instructive for children to know about goings-on in the world, but since there was no quiz for that hardly anyone really paid any attention. Harry, inclined to be depressed about losing out on the parents, stopped minding the play as soon as Gaz struck up a game of marbles with Najid. He traced someone else's old drawing in his textbook, an old pencil rendering of the faded banner that hung above the Head Table. Harry added birds that might pass for crows, blackening them with his pen in thick dark strokes and drawing claws clutching the ends of the banner.

'Yes, Mr Jones?'

'Professor, who's that man on the telly?'

Harry glanced up to see Professor Lupin reaching for the controls on the television on the shelf with obscure, dusty trophies of indistinguishable sports of years past, and turned it off. A few groans of disappointment didn't faze him. Nothing much ever did. 'The news is warning everyone about an escaped criminal, Mr Jones. It's none of your concern.'

'You reckon? I mean mightn't he come here, if he was sighted in our area?'

'Professor? Will he come here?'

'Ooh, is he a murderer, Professor?'

'More like a perv,' cracked Gaz to Harry. 'Come to a boys' home, yeah. Better wear two layers of undershorts tonight!'

'Enough,' Lupin said, cutting everyone quiet with a single stern word. 'You will attend to Master Shakespeare, please. Crowhill boys will be well-educated or they will go to bed before eight.' He paused. 'Yes, Professor Lupin.'

'Yes, Professor Lupin,' they chorused, and heads bent back to their books, at least til Lupin went back to his tea and his own reading.

Harry went back to his doodling. He drew a squiggly sort of face with a crown of ivy leaves. An asp, not that he knew what an asp looked like, so it was a squiggly sort of snake wrapping around and around a wobbly neck, fangs arched and dripping ink.

'Lurid,' a voice commented dryly. Harry slammed his book shut, not before Professor Lupin arched a brow at him. Harry flushed.

'Sorry, sir,' he began, but Lupin only handed him a paper. His maths test. 7 of 10, that was better than he'd expected. In the top right corner Lupin had written 'Good work'. 'Thank you, sir.'

'You're welcome, Harry.' Lupin didn't move on from his table, though. 'You're nearly eleven, Harry, aren't you?'

'Me? Yes, sir. In two months.'

'Hm,' Professor Lupin said, with pursed lips and a thoughtful cast of his strange pale eyes. They were a very unusual colour, in much the way that Harry's were. Except that Harry had very green eyes, like grass or crayons, and Professor Lupin's were sort of yellowish, like the Adults-Only Juice all the teachers drank at the head table. They were very washed out in the flickering overhead lights of the hall. The ever-present bags under his eyes had much more colour to them, and the gaunt shadows of his face. 'Eleven,' Professor Lupin said, 'eleven is a very important year, I think.'

Harry hadn't especially thought any years were more important than others, except for marking your chances of getting out of Crowhill Boys Home. He should know. Eleven would mean he had been at Crowhill for seven whole years.

Harry was inclined to feel sorry for himself, but he didn't like to do so in front of a teacher. Nothing was worse than being called to the Head's office because you were moping. Moping was a guaranteed road to being volunteered for horrid tasks like fence painting and floor scrubbing. The Head believed that nothing cured teenage grumps quite so well as hard, sweaty work.

His deception must not have been quick enough. Lupin and his piercing gaze didn't miss a wink.

'Tea,' Lupin declared suddenly, and patted him on the shoulder. 'Come to my office for tea tomorrow, Mr Potter.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry said, and Lupin moved away without anything else, to break up a shoving match that had started near the back.

Gaz kicked him lightly under the table. 'Don't let him lock the door, Potter. You know what happens to little boys who-'

Harry ostentatiously propped his book upright, Act III Scene I glaring off the page. 'You think everyone's a pervert.'

'Why else would you be a teacher here? Fresh meat every year.'

'Lupin's not like that.'

Marcus sidled closer on their bench, jostling Harry's book with his and setting up a kind of fortress of paper that blocked Gaz's smirk from view. Behind that impenetrable wall, Marcus nudged Harry. He said, quietly, 'Reckon he must be, though. You know he's got the hivv.'

'The what?'

Gaz knocked their books down. 'The hivv,' he hissed, loud enough to turn a few nearby heads. 'You know. The queer disease.' The older boy grinned his gap-toothed grin at Harry, who squirmed in his seat. 'You know what queer is, don' ya?'

Harry didn't, as it happened. 'Of course,' he retorted in his best scornful voice, which trembled a bit at the end.

'Stop it,' said Benjamin Hounders, and he was one of the oldest at Crowhill, so the other boys did what he said and kept out of his way. He was scowling down at his book, but under the lip of the table he had a magazine opened his in lap, and it had pictures of ladies without clothes on. Now he closed the magazine and rolled it up tight to slip into his pocket. 'You don't know shit, Gary, stop pretending you do.'

'Well he's sick all the time, int he?' Gaz protested. 'He's always taking off ill.'

'Maybe he just gets tired of looking at your stupid face, wanker. I do.' Hounders shoved to his feet, raising a hand to the air. 'Professor? Can I be excused? Only Jasper and I were going to work on the Biology practical.'

They weren't, either. They were going to go to the loo and do things that the older boys did. Harry didn't know what that was, either, but it was a zealously guarded privilege. None of the younger boys were even allowed to pee after eight. If you had to go, you had to sneak downstairs or hold it. Harry reckoned it had something to do with the dirty magazines, but he knew better than to ask questions.

Still, he wondered. He wondered, very uneasily, and it was a long time that night before his brain could settle. He lay staring at the bunk above his, bowing a little from Gaz's weight in the middle, and everything went swirling around in his head. Hivvs and queers and naked ladies all went tumbling over each other and before he knew it he was a dark place, running, or maybe flying, but motorcycles couldn't fly, could they? And the strange dream ended with a lady crying his name, and screaming, and a flash of green light that made Harry wake, gasping, and almost sick up from the pain in his head. But it was just a remembered pain, like the nightmare was just a memory. The car crash that had killed his parents, and left the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, the only thing he had left of them. He buried his hot face in his pillow and willed back tired tears. He hadn't had that dream in a long time. He hated that dream.

He was scratchy-eyed and weary by morning, too listless to eat much and therefore even more tired as he dragged through classes. He was docked a point in Geography for doing up his tie wrong and not remembering to brush his hair, though he thought rebelliously that his hair always looked like he'd forgot to brush it anyway. He was docked another point in History for falling asleep, though really he'd just been sitting with his eyes closed thinking if he could pretend he'd slept the whole night through he might make his body believe it. By luncheon he had a full demerit, and watched glumly as the silver star with his name on it was moved down to the bottom of the big chart in the mess hall. Jasper and Benjamin were in demerits, too, which likely meant they'd been caught doing whatever it was they did in the loo, but that didn't make Harry feel any better. With a sigh Harry collected his tray of sandwich and an apple from the fruit bowl, and took himself to the patio to eat. A few of the other boys were about, but most were involved in an impromptu game of football on the lawn, and the drowsy summer heat drowned out their raucous yells and silly fumbling. Harry drooped over his plate, only slowly realising he'd put his head down on his arms, a bit of egg salad dribbling out of his sandwich onto the leg of his trousers. He was so tired. Just a few minutes, he'd hear the bell...

'Harry,' someone hissed, and it seemed the world became very dim, somehow, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, but it was mid-day, and the shadows shouldn't be that long, nor that menacing. He felt something cold and wet nudge against his hand, and dropped his sandwich with a start. A huge black dog stood at his knee, growling softly and insistently, like the thunder of an approaching storm. When the sandwich plopped to the patio stones, the dog whuffed, foul breath washing over Harry. Its sinister jaws snapped, and then it lapped up the sandwich and chewed it down. It issued a bark that sounded more like an order than a thanks, and Harry reached out as if in a dream and picked up his apple. He tried to drop it, or lob it, sort of, some distance away, but the dog took it right out of his hand before he could. Harry stared at the slick of slobber on his palm, and swallowed hard. The apple disappearing into a squirt of juice and mash could just as readily been his fingers- but hadn't been.

'Good boy,' Harry whispered tentatively, and watched himself quite unwisely put his hand out, both terrified and absolutely sure he had no need to be. The dog sniffed his hand, and then perked its big ears. Harry slid his fingers into tangled fur, caressing the ridge of a big black eye and petting back along the curve of a hard skull, instinctively finding the soft spot at the back of the head. The dog whined, just a little, and tilted into the caress. 'You're not so scary,' Harry whispered, encouraged by that. 'You look like a monster, but you're not so bad, are you?'

'Potter! Get away from that mangy cur!'

The dog flipped away from him. Harry caught a whip of a long tail against his arm, still stupidly outstretched, as the dog bounded off into the bushes. Mr Thompkins went charging past Harry, tripping off the steps of the patio with a broom waving wildly in his arms. Mr Thompkins chased the dog all the way off the property, but didn't seem to see what Harry had- the dog slid on its belly between a bush and the old willow, and went out a burrow-hole right under the fence. To Mr Thompkins, it evidently appeared the dog had merely vanished, and he stomped about the yard poking into bushes with the broom and cursing loudly.

Just then Harry became aware that he felt simultaneously much better and much worse. Better because he saw he'd accidentally fallen asleep, at some point- the sun had indeed gone in behind a cloud, and it was no longer mid-day, but early evening. And worse because his unplanned nap had clearly caused him to miss half a day of classes, not least that of Thompkins, who looked fit to be tied as he came stomping back toward Harry with the broom gripped in both fists and a very angry look bugging out his overlarge eyes.

Oh, bugger.

'Potter,' Thompkins growled. Harry squeaked something, wiping his damp hand on his trousers as he scrambled to his feet. 'Where have you been all bloody day, boy?'

'Sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-'

Thompkins tripped on the same step of the patio coming up, and Harry gloomily saw that it only maddened the Religion instructor further. This suspicion was confirmed when Thompkins jabbed the bristles of the broom into Harry's middle, smearing his white shirt with dirt and poking his ribs with dozens of needles. 'You are aware that there is no sleeping outside of beds at Crowhill, Potter?'

'No, sir. I know, sir.'

'You know, do you? Then you disobeyed the rules on purpose?'

'I didn't mean to!'

'Did you mean to feed that rabid beast? Have you been sneaking out here to feed it all along? There are no pets at Crowhill, Potter, no matter how sorry you feel for it.' Another jab, this one rather more serious, since Harry must not have looked any sorrier than he felt for that error. He hadn't meant to feed the dog, had he- well, not the sandwich, anyway. 'Any apologies rattling around in there, Potter?'

'I didn't mean to,' Harry said again, quite truthfully, and quite inadequately.

'Stupid boy,' Thompkins spat, and pulled himself up to his full height. His moustaches were quivering and his face was cherry red, all signs Harry recognised and knew quite enough to fear, but the malicious gleam was new. 'You think you're special, Potter, don't you. Think the rules don't apply to you, eh.'

'I've never thought that, sir.'

'Crowhill isn't good enough for you, is it? Off to your new school, eh, leaving all these brats behind? You're still an orphan. You won't get away from this place.'

Harry stared up at his teacher, stung by that. 'I know, sir,' he said, but Thompkins didn't seem to hear him, or even care any more.

'Hands,' Thompkins said, and Harry shivered. It would be nice if the dog came back and bit Mr Thompkins just now, but then Thompkins would probably blame Harry for that, too. He'd had his hands slapped before. Thompkins did it to everyone at some point, just because he could. Harry put his chin high, and his hands out. He was nearly eleven, even if he was an orphan who'd never leave Crowhill. He wouldn't blubber about it.

But he swore that to himself before he realised Thompkins didn't have a ruler or his classroom pointer. What he had was a broom with a thick wooden handle, and when it slapped down on Harry's knuckles, it _hurt._

Harry was late for tea with Professor Lupin. Marcus, who had kitchen duty, had got Harry a cold mustard to soothe his hurt, and he still smelled rather strongly of Dijon when he climbed the stairs to the third storey overlooking the abandoned factory. Lupin's office was at the far end of the corridor, and Harry dragged his feet, dreading another scolding. Thompkins had denied him dinner as well as slapping his hands, and since the strange dog had eaten his lunch, Harry had a mild headache and a worse stomachache. He hoped Lupin might have biscuits or something for him, but Lupin didn't generally go in for sweets, and Harry glumly reflected it had been a terrible week, altogether.

Happily, Lupin's door wasn't shut, and Harry was spared figuring how to knock with sore swollen knuckles. He nudged it wider, and peered around the jamb. 'Professor?' he called. 'Sir, it's Harry Potter.'

'Come in, Mr Potter.'

Lupin was at his desk, which was a battered old secretary of peeling pine finish so stuffed with books it looked like a library had vomitted all over it. Books towered in stacks all across the surface, and lined up against the spindly legs and under the area his feet were supposed to go, but couldn't find any room. A shelving unit was just as bad, and it looked as if Lupin were in the midst of reading at least seven or nine different books, all of them open more than halfway and several sporting cups on saucers in various stages of abandonment. Lupin went looking for fresh cups as Harry cleared a spot on the sagging sofa along the wall, squeezing in next to _The Handmaid's Tale_ and _Robots and Empire_. Lupin relocated his electric teapot closer to the socket under the window, and soon it was rumbling. 'Do you drink tea, Mr Potter?' Lupin asked.

'I don't know,' Harry said. 'Some of the older boys do.'

'Why don't we see if you like it.' Lupin dusted a cup for him, ignoring Harry's dubious glance. 'I recommend two sugars to start. Where- ah.' He moved a book, and produced a tin. 'Biscuit?'

Harry's stomach gurgled an answer. He meant to only take a few, but Lupin handed over the entire tin, and sat back to pour water over tea bags. Harry ate, and ate a few more when Lupin nodded for him to make free, and took the cup when Lupin passed, or tried to. Lupin didn't let it go, and tea sloshed, a little, as Lupin stared at his hands.

'Did you by any chance attack a tree?' Lupin asked, and his voice had got very quiet. Harry had never heard that kind of voice on a teacher before, but it was far more dangerous than Mr Thompkin's maddest screaming. 'Tear down a stone fortress? Beat a giant?'

'Er... no, sir.'

Lupin took hold of his hands. Harry winced pre-emptively, but Lupin was very gentle with him, just turning them by the wrist this way and that. 'Harry,' he said, in that tone just a little bit above a whisper, 'did one of the other boys do this to you?'

'No, sir,' Harry said.

'Did you do this to yourself?'

'No! Sir.'

Lupin enclosed both of Harry's smaller hands in his larger ones, cool against the throbbing heat of his knuckles. 'A teacher?'

'I...' His hesitation was answer enough. Lupin was pale over the rumpled collar of his shirt, and his red tie was like an exclamation point under eyes that had gone very fierce. 'I... don't want to get in trouble, sir,' Harry managed.

'You won't.' Lupin squeezed his hands carefully. 'But I should very much like to know who did this. It's not to be borne.'

'You won't- you won't fight him?' If anyone had asked Harry this morning he would have scoffed at the idea of Lupin fighting anyone. But he was suddenly aware that Lupin was quite tall, actually, and though he was thin his shoulders were broad and the old faded scar on his cheek looked suddenly less like a childhood accident than a map of unimaginable brawls on pirate ships or in biker bars or something equally perilous.

'No,' Lupin replied. 'I can promise you he won't fight me at all.'

That was not precisely what Harry had asked. But he believed it to the bone. 'I didn't sleep well last night, I fell asleep at lunch, there was a dog, only I reckon it must be wild because it was very hungry and skinny, but it didn't bite or anything, and I cheeked Mr Thompkins, only I didn't mean to but I did, the dog ate my sandwich and I think Mr Thompkins must not like dogs, I think- sir,' Harry blurted all in a rush.

And Lupin nodded once. He said, 'Thank you, Harry,' and rose. He was nearly at the door when he turned, and fetched a small glass bottle from inside his desk. He said, 'Use a dab of that tonight, on each hand. No more than the size of a pound coin.' And then he was out the door, and his footsteps moved swiftly off in the direction of the east wing, where Mr Thompkins's office was.

The oddest thing was that he seemed to have taken something else out of his drawer- a long stick not unlike the pointers the teachers used in their classes, and he was holding it in a clenched fist. Was he planning on rapping Mr Thompkins's knuckles? Or worse? Mr Thompkins liked to talk in Religion about how in his day whipping and caning had been allowed, and Professor Lupin, kind Professor Lupin who always had something nice to say, looked plenty capable of caning a man with that stick.

If Harry had had a hard time falling asleep before, that night was positively torturous.

But he must have been out a least a while, since he woke abruptly at the noise of Marcus tumbling off the bunk, late for first bell. Harry scrambled to follow, rubbing drool off his face and remembering only at the last moment to go back for a comb so he wouldn't be docked points again, though the mirror told him he looked a fright anyway, all red eyes and hair standing out like the hay in a scarecrow's hat. Harry was clattering down the steps with his bookbag thumping along his spine, sprinting pell-mell with the other late boys for their classrooms, and made it to his desk in the back of his first period with just seconds to spare. Mr Higgins gave him a withering look, but didn't pursue it, and Harry allowed himself to breathe. He got out his notebook and History textbook, and waited meekly in queue to sharpen his pencils for the day as Mr Higgins wrote their assignment on the board.

The pleasant grate of the sharpener was lulling him when he noticed something- or, rather, the lack of something- and all of yesterday's anxieties came flooding back, with a hefty dose of confusion.

His hands were completely unmarred.

They'd been swollen as sausages just last night. Bloody in the knuckles, and blistered. He'd had one fingernail going purple and black and had thought he'd lose it for sure. He hadn't been able to bend them hardly at all. Now he made a fist without pain, wiggled each finger freely. Maybe he hadn't been injured as badly as he'd feared? It had seemed awful, Harry thought dubiously, as he trotted back to his seat. But perhaps he'd just been that upset, and thinking it must look as bad as it felt. But it had hurt something terrible, it really had. Hadn't it?

By the time Maths rolled around, Harry was well on his way to doing himself a new injury, from chewing on his thumbnail. He was ahead of the crowd, this time, running between Geography and Lupin's classroom so fast he arrived sweating, shoving his way through the boys still exiting in a stream to peer through the door. Lupin was there, dusting his board and his sleeve with equanimity, and when he saw Harry standing there he smiled absently and said, 'Take your seats, boys, if you please.'

'You look all right,' Harry said, and blushed when he realised that had been aloud.

Lupin turned to face him, brushing chalk from his hands. He nodded. 'Yes,' he replied. 'I am, thank you. And you?'

Wordlessly Harry showed the professor his own hands. Lupin didn't look at all amazed, which put Harry out a bit. Instead, Lupin issued a brisk, 'Excellent,' and commenced ignoring Harry as he returned serenely to the his lessonbook.

Harry was a tiny bit miffed by that. He stomped a bit as he went to his usual desk, but Lupin didn't look at him even when he ran through attendance. He started them immediately on decimals. Harry's scowl soon turned toward the work- he was on the slow side, completing the worksheet for ordering decimals, and as the lesson wound down Harry was concentrating so hard he missed Lupin's regular walkabout til the Professor was suddenly standing there next to Harry's desk, bent over Harry's shoulder to read his page.

But made no comment about it. He merely straightened, and said, 'Stay after, please, Mr Potter,' and moved on to review Gaz's worksheet in the next row.

Well. That didn't sound encouraging, but it gave Harry time to think of what he wanted to say, which he supposed he ought to have done anyway. So when the bell rang and the other boys had gone, Harry walked slowly to Lupin's desk at the front of the classroom. Lupin waited for him there, saying nothing, either, and for a moment they just looked each other in the eye. Then Harry took his hand out of his pocket and put Lupin's little bottle of balm on the edge of the desk.

Lupin's eyes flicked to it. 'Thank you for returning that,' he said.

'Yes, sir. For the next boy who needs it.'

He had thought that quite a subtle probe. Lupin's mouth turned up, spreading small lines to either side of his lips. 'You boys won't need it,' he answered, and put the bottle in his coat. 'There will be no further problems which warrant its use.'

'Did you beat him?' Harry asked, and perhaps blunt worked where subtle did not, because Lupin's smile faded.

'No, Harry,' he said, and looked away. 'But you have my word. He will never hurt anyone else.'

'I believe you.'

'Do you?'

'Yes,' Harry said. He licked his lips, glancing up at the clock over the door. 'Sir...'

'Our tea was interrupted,' Lupin said then. 'Would you mind, returning tonight? I had meant to talk to you. There are things I would- like to talk to you about.'

'We can't talk now?'

Lupin exhaled a dusty laugh. 'Well, I suppose we might. That is rather cruel, isn't it, leaving you in suspense.' He walked past Harry, to shut the door and draw the shade over the window. 'I can't always be writing you passes for missing class, but I suppose it doesn't really matter now.'

'Why?' Harry asked, sitting as Lupin gestured him to, in one of the desks in the front row. Lupin carried his chair from the board to put it near Harry's seat, and sat with his hands on his knees. 'I mean, why wouldn't it matter now?'

'Because things are going to change soon.' Lupin flexed his hands, and opened his mouth a little, but no sound emerged. His shoulders were tight and slumped by turns, and he seemed to be thinking very hard. Harry waited on tenterhooks. 'You're nearly eleven,' Lupin said eventually. 'That's a very significant age.'

Lupin had said that before. 'I don't think I understand, sir.'

Lupin made another false start, and bit his lip. He's nervous, Harry realised, amazed. He'd never seen an adult look like that. Unthinking, Harry reached out, and patted the Professor's arm. Lupin looked down at his hand with a bowed head, and kept it low like that even when Harry, abashed, retreated to his own desk.

Lupin found his voice again at last, though he still did not look up. 'Do you recall when I came to teach at Crowhill, Harry?'

'Sort of?' Sometimes it seemed nothing at Crowhill ever changed. 'I think I was seven?'

'You were,' Lupin confirmed. 'Or just short of seven, that is, just as you're just short of eleven now. I had wanted to be here earlier than that, but it took that long for me to find you.'

Harry knew, suddenly. He just knew. The way Lupin had always been just a little more attentive to Harry than anyone else, and touched him sometimes on his shoulder, when he didn't touch the other boys. He found himself holding his breath, but couldn't help it.

'You see, when you were younger- no. You see, I'd been looking. I'd been looking for you, but it was very hard to find you. Every time I got close, something happened to delay me. Albus was always keen to- no. That's for later, if ever.' Lupin composed himself rigidly. 'It took me some time to locate your aunt and uncle. Do you remember them? Vernon and Petunia Dursley?'

Harry did remember them, in that he remembered a very loud very big man and a very thin very shrill woman, and none of what he remembered of them was good. But he supposed he had not been a very good baby, because they had given him away to Crowhill Boys Home. Harry did not remember this, but had overheard Deacon Massey from the local church tell Mr Higgins that Harry Potter was a sad case. Unwanted. His relatives had dumped him off with the police in the middle of the night, with nothing but an empty pillow sack filled with half a sleeve of McVities biscuits, a mealey apple, and a ten pound note, and his name pinned to his shirt collar.

'I didn't really remember their names,' Harry said at length. 'They were just Aunt and Uncle.'

'Yes, well, for your sake I wish they were even less than that. They didn't deserve something implying that much connection.' Lupin glanced up at him, and away. 'I don't mean to pain you. But the truth is they are not good people. Hard as it's been for you, here, I think it would have been worse with them. At any rate- at any rate I was too late to them, and by the time I found them, they had already been shot of you for some time. I don't know if you can imagine this, but there's so much paperwork in Mug- in modern life. There were records, and I talked to everyone who'd ever met you, it seemed, as you were processed through the police and family services and eventually into foster care. And eventually to Crowhill. By then you were seven, and I had missed... had missed so much of your life. And I- I desperately wish it were otherwise, but I couldn't come here as a parent and take you away, as you deserved. I would never have been allowed custody of a child, and I couldn't put you through a life on the run, exiled between two worlds. I did what I could to be near you, hiring on as a teacher here. I know it wasn't enough- I know it's never enough, when what you want, what you obviously want and deserve, deserve is to know a good life in a good home-'

Lupin was uncharacteristically rambling, but Harry hung on every word, simultaneously trying to imprint it all on his memory so he could linger over it later, and get through all the blasted words to the one he most wanted to hear. The final little stumble in Lupin's voice was all he could bear, and he burst out with it as if his heart was bursting with it. He said, 'Are you my father?'

Lupin looked up, caught. 'Oh,' he breathed, and looked stricken, and that was all Harry needed to know. Hope like he'd never known crashed to ashes about his ears. His stomach dropped all the way to the floor, through the floor, and, most horrible of all, his eyes filled with tears.

'Oh,' Harry said, in a very small voice.

Lupin left his chair in a rush, falling to his knees beside Harry's desk. He put both hands on Harry's shoulders, squeezing tight as if he thought Harry might run, and Harry thought he might well run indeed, because he had never, in all his life, been so humiliated as he was right now. 'I know they're dead,' Harry croaked. 'I know about the car crash, I just- I'm sorry, that was so foolish, I know they're dead-'

Lupin's face was a pale blur through his tears. 'Yes,' Lupin whispered, 'yes, they are, and I'm so unbearably sorry about that. But, Harry, I did know them. They were wonderful dear friends of mine, and though I could never- I didn't have it in my power to take you when they died, I wanted to. You are such a wonderful, special boy, Harry, and things are- things are about to change, for you. And I- I see now I've done this horribly wrong, but I wanted- oh, Harry, I just wanted- you to know the truth- I-'

Harry wiped viciously at his face. 'The truth about you?'

'The truth about _you_. Harry, you don't belong here, one anonymous boy alone with all these Muggles. The truth, Harry, is so much more complex than that. You were never meant to be here at all. If they'd lived, your parents would have raised you as a wizard.'

The word made his ears ring like a- bell. Or was that just the bell calling for next class? But a weird shiver of anticipation and- and joy crawled over Harry, and he shook his head to clear it, blinked the tears from his eyes. 'A what?'

Lupin nodded. 'You're a wizard, Harry. And an extraordinary one, I reckon. A wizard like our world has never seen.'

There it was again. Joy. Harry looked at Lupin, that strange unusual new joyful feeling welling up in him, sweeping away everything bad like sludge washed away with the rain, and he met Lupin's eyes, Lupin's strange eyes like his strange eyes, and he laughed. He laughed because he felt too good not to laugh. And Lupin smiled at him, used his thumbs to wipe the wet from Harry's cheeks, and laughed with him.


	2. A Proper Wizard

_In Which One Comes, And One Goes._

Harry savoured every detail of it. How thick and crisp the paper was, how the green ink swirled and swooped so beautifully in perfectly level lines, how it tingled against his fingertips- well, that last part might be his imagination, but he liked it, so he went on pretending he could feel the magic in it.

'This is my first post,' he said, and looked up with a smile that felt like it stretched ear to ear.

Lupin returned his smile with a small, but warm, upturn of his lips. 'It's a good one to be first, then. Your Hogwarts invitation is special.'

Special. Yes. It was a very special letter, this, and all Harry's. Mr Harry James Potter, that was his name written on the envelope, and the hard red sticker sealing it was wax, Professor Lupin said, and pressed into the wax was a picture Lupin called a seal, the seal of Hogwarts, a little too smooshy and blurred to make out entirely, but special nonetheless. Professor Lupin had showed him how to use the flat edge of a knife to pop the seal whole from the parchment, to preserve it if he wanted, and then there had been the letter. Oh, the letter- Harry had the entirety of it memorised already, but he read it again for the sheer delight of it.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL _of_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

'What's a Mugwump?' Harry asked.

Professor Lupin slowed for the sliproad and turned their car to the right. It was a bright warm day, and they drove with the windows down to enjoy the sun and the breeze. They had left the city far behind and then the motorways too and now they were in the country, on a lot of two or one-way roads that seemed maze-like to Harry, leading them ever further without ever seeming to go anywhere but further again. Lupin had a map folded up on the backseat, but never looked at it. He did reach back there now, only to retrieve the bag with their packed lunches. He fished out a can of Vimto and trapped the can between his knees to pop the top. 'A Mugwump,' he said, 'well, that's the title of whoever leads the International Confederation of Wizards. Most wizarding nations have a representative, and the British represenative isn't always the Supreme Mugwump, but it's been Dumbledore for about fifteen years.'

Harry wasn't entirely sure that answered his question, but in the past few days he had learnt that very few things about the Wizarding World, as Lupin called it, were in fact straightforward.

'Are warlocks different than wizards?' he asked next.

'Yes, that's insightful of you. A warlock is a warrior wizard. Most wizards pursue other occupations.'

'How many wizards and warlocks are there?'

'And witches,' Lupin said. 'About three hundred thousand. In Britain, it's about six thousand.' He braked for the yield at the roundabout, though they were the only car Harry had seen in an hour at least. 'There are other schools than Hogwarts, of course, even in Britain. We could consider those, if you like.'

'But my mum and dad went to Hogwarts?'

Lupin glanced sideways at him. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, they did.'

'Then I want to go there.' Harry tore himself away from contemplating his letter to rifle the lunch bag. Cook had packed them baked chicken and boiled veg; Harry made a face at the sight, and took an apple instead. 'Tell me more about it?'

Though he'd already asked that exact question a dozen times at least, Professor Lupin only chuckled. 'Right, where were we,' he said, as they put Chester at their backs and headed toward a place called Mold. 'Let's see, have I told you about Quidditch yet?'

'No, sir. Is that a class?' His letter had detailed all the books first years would need, and they were impressively exotic. Harry couldn't even imagine what he would be learning, but it was bound to be loads better than Geography and- though he felt disloyal to think it- Maths.

'Quidditch is a sport. A wizarding sport, played on broom-back. It's rather like football, but there's several extra balls. A Quaffle, which players try to get through the goal-posts, and Bludgers, which are a sort of offencive ball that Beaters use to try and unseat the opposing team, and the Golden Snitch. A player called a Seeker spends the entire game looking for the Snitch, which flies everywhere and tries to hide from them. Each team has a Seeker, and the game can't end til one of them finds the Snitch. The longest game I ever saw ran four continuous days, and in rain, sleet, and snow, no less.'

'That's mad,' Harry scoffed, but what he really meant by that was _thrilling_ , and Lupin took another look at him and laughed again, and Harry grinned.

'You would think so,' Lupin said. 'So did your father. James was a Chaser. The ones who try to get the Quaffle through the goals.'

Harry could never tire of hearing about his parents. He was carefully hoarding every fact Lupin gave him. So far he knew his mother's name was Lily, that she'd had long ginger hair, that she was clever, cleverer than all the boys and all the other girls for that matter, and that it was her sister who had been his Aunt, Aunt Petunia, who had decided not to keep Harry even though he was her nephew. His father was James, which was how Harry had got his middle name- he'd never known that before- and James had had messy hair like Harry's, though rather lighter, and had been a war hero. Harry still didn't entirely know which war, and so far there had been other things to ask every time it came up. Like-

'Do I have grandparents?'

Lupin let out a long breath, like a sigh stretched over several seconds. His hands flexed on the wheel. 'James's parents were Fleamont and Euphemia.'

Harry couldn't help a snicker. 'Fleamont?'

Lupin cocked an eyebrow at him. 'Yes, well, you see why Lily liked the name "Harry" so much.'

'But they're dead now, aren't they? Or they'd have taken me?'

'Or they'd have taken you in a heartbeat,' Lupin said, confirming the small seed of hope Harry hadn't been able to stop himself feeling. But that meant his grandparents were dead, and even though he supposed he'd known that in the back of his mind, it put a lump of sadness in his throat where the hope had been a moment earlier. 'I know Mr and Mrs Evans would have, too, but they died before Lily was out of school. Your dad's parents died of dragon pox the year you were born.'

'Dragon pox?'

'It's like the mumps. There's a cure, now, but there wasn't in the '80s.' Lupin reached out to tap the letter in Harry's hand. 'Headmaster Dumbledore is the one who invented it. He worked with a young Potions Master at Hogwarts. He'll be one of your teachers. Severus Snape.'

That diverted Harry from his sadness for a moment. 'Potions?'

'I've seen you on kitchen duty. I don't imagine you'll be brilliant at it, but it's an exceedingly useful skill.' Lupin smiled at him. 'Potions is in the dungeons- the deepest, dankest dungeon in Hogwarts, so when your cauldrons explode they don't take half the castle with them. The worst Potions disaster of all time was in 1437, and it cratered the entire North Tower. One of the Hogwarts ghosts, the Fat Friar, he was the instructor that day. He's been wandering the school ever since.'

'A ghost?' Harry breathed. 'Ghosts are real?'

'Very real.'

'Do you think...' Harry ran his fingers down the folds of the envelope. 'Never mind.'

This time he was sure it was a sigh. 'Your parents aren't ghosts. I'm sorry.'

'Do you miss them?'

'Yes.' The word came out on the tail end of that exhale, almost without any breath behind it. 'Very much.'

Harry sighed, this time. He had never really done it before, not on purpose, but it was very satisfying, sucking up a big gulp of air and blowing it out so hard from way down in his gut that it tossed his hair over his glasses. It felt like it took all the weird jumble of hurts in his whole body and gusted them away.

Once they passed Mold they were in Wales proper, Professor Lupin said, and though it didn't look much different from England at first it gradually began to. Their road wound up and down hills, hills that became taller and taller until Harry thought they might be mountains. He stared out his window, awed, as they drove through a valley with huge sheer sides shooting up jaggedly, grey rock that Professor Lupin said was slate tumbling down in huge flat boulders all about and so high it almost blocked the sun. Professor Lupin said the mountains where Hogwarts was in Scotland were higher, but not so dramatic as Snowdonia. To Harry, who had never been farther than Crowhill in flat Berkshire, it was as much a fantasy as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

And warlocks, he reminded himself.

Harry woke from an unintended nap feeling groggy. They were parked. Lupin had left the car- Harry twisted about and saw the boot was popped, and a moment later Lupin came to tap on Harry's window. Harry scrambled to get loose of his safety belt, and hurriedly exited the car. Lupin had their bags, and Harry tripped after him as they walked through rows of other vehicles to the edge of a car park. Lupin walked right past the metre, though, and Harry tugged at his sleeve, wondering if he hadn't seen it.

'Don't worry about it,' Lupin said. He looked both ways up the street, and discreetly slid a long stick from his sleeve. Harry watched him flick it once, and a bright blue spark flew from the tip to the metre. A moment later, a ticket popped out.

Harry gaped. It was, he realised suddenly, the first magic he'd actually seen. It was one thing to hear about it, and he supposed he'd believed it without question, but to actually see it!

He turned wide eyes to Professor Lupin. 'More?' he asked.

Lupin let out a startled laugh. 'Well, I was going to take the bus,' he said, 'but I suppose Apparition is quicker. Very well, but we need a bit of privacy. Let's cross to that alley there.'

'What's Appa- applifition?' Harry stammered. He glanced about as they crossed the street. The street sign was a weird jumble of letters- oh, that wasn't English. 'Where are we?'

'We're in Beddgelert. It's a mixed Muggle and Magic village, as many places are. We're only here overnight, but if we have time I'll make sure you get to Glaslyn Ices. Gold medal winning ice cream, you won't have better outside of Diagon Alley- though as a Glaslyn loyalist, I should say that while Glaslyn hasn't quite the long history that Florean Fortescue's does, that's to say nothing of serving both Muggles and magic folk which Glaslyn does quite handily. The Banoffee Butterbeer Glaze- no, the Turkish Moonflower Delight- well, maybe we'll have to get one of each to test the quality.' Lupin ruffled Harry's hair. 'You'll make that sacrifice for me, eh?'

'I'll do my best, sir.'

'Take my arm, please.' Lupin held it low for him and positioned them against the wall at the back of the alley, behind a fall of ivy. 'This is going to be rather peculiar, and you'll want to have a tight grip, yes? Wait- here.' He produced a stick of chewing gum from his coat pocket. 'Pop that in. First time Apparation can be a bit of a shocker. Ready?'

Harry followed Lupin's wand avidly with his eyes as it swished up, carved the air in a graceful circle, and came down with firm alacrity. He had time to wonder if he'd be learning Apple-ation at Hogwarts when the magic took him and-

 _Ooph._ And squeezed him horrid tight all over, like toothpaste in a tube, squishing him down a long tunnel and tumbling crazily through the air all at once. Harry yelled, he was fairly sure, and only Lupin's arm under his hands anchored him at all, and he was upside down, no, rightside up but inside out-

And then they landed, and Harry would have fallen but for Lupin steadying him, and he panted bent over his knees.

'Chew the gum,' Lupin advised him, and Harry mashed it furiously between his jaws. It did ease the nausea, at least. Harry wiped sweaty palms on his trousers. 'Well done, Harry. Most people sick up their first trip.'

'I can see why.' Harry removed his glasses to rub his eyes. When he hooked them back over his ears, he stared. They weren't in the alley anymore! They were someplace else entirely, a cottage in the woods, and they stood under a thick canopy of twisty old trees that scented the air with living green. 'Oh,' Harry said, turning in place to look everywhere. He could just see the outline of the mountains through the trees, and they weren't so far off the road, and on the other side of the road was a river, a big burbling river that sounded like a running faucet only happier somehow, freerer. And there were birds chirping everywhere even though he couldn't see them, and insects buzzing so fiercely he thought at first it was static on a radio. There was a vegetable patch in front of the cottage, and flowers growing riotous out of their pots and ivy all up the stone walls of the little house, and the chimney puffed a thin trail of white smoke to wisp away in the breeze. 'This is the most wonderful place I've ever seen,' Harry said, deeply impressed.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Lupin replied, and his hand on Harry's shoulder tightened, but just for a moment, and Harry forgot about it as Lupin started walking up the path. Harry jumped to follow. They climbed three wooden steps onto a small portico- they creaked a bit, and now that he was closer Harry could see the cottage was in some disrepair, a bit of peeling paint and one window pane at least patched with cardboard where it had broken, but then Lupin was opening the door with a key and holding it wide for Harry, and he stepped through to gape anew.

The inside was larger than the ouside! It absolutely had to be, because everywhere Harry looked there were more doors, and stairs- stairs to where? It was only a single-level cottage, but those were clearly stairs going up to a first storey, and when Harry poked his head up he saw another flight of stairs above those. Lupin set their bags in a sitting room with wallpaper of eye-popping chintz and a prim set of couch and chairs in matching pattern, and beyond the sitting room was a room with a full dining table, six chairs facing each other over an expanse of white linen and gold candlesticks and a blue china bowl of dried flowers. There was a big hutch with lots of plates and teacups that looked very old, much nicer than what they ate on at Crowhill, and on every wall there was a portrait or three, some of them clearly very old and some photographs and- Harry stopped dead.

'Professor?' he asked. 'Is it- is the picture moving?'

Lupin came to stand beside him. 'Hullo, Mam,' he said, and the woman in the picture turned her head from profile to smile down at them. She waved brightly, and went back to her knitting.

'Is that your mother?' Harry touched the frame gingerly. It was a real photograph, a bit faded with age, but how did it move? 'She's not... she's not _in_ there?'

'No. She died just before I graduated Hogwarts.' Lupin gazed at the photograph with an odd expression, one that made Harry put his hands in his pockets and stand very still until Lupin noticed him again. Lupin put on a smile. 'Why don't you make us some tea, Harry? There should be fresh milk on the back porch, if the delivery was timely, and I believe the kettle will be on the stove.'

Harry ran to do as he was told. The porch was off the kitchen, and he wasted only a moment or two- no more than a minute- gazing out at the sight before him. He could see the village from here, a scattering of white houses amid neatly tended fields, and the meandering valley with the green and purple mountains to either side, and that silver glister was a big lake, and there were white puffy clouds and the sun falling in bright yellow beams on the wrinkly folds of the mountaintops. But eventually he minded his task, and found a crate of old-fashioned glass bottles of milk, ice cold as if they'd just been dropped off, though no-one had been near when they'd Amplified to the cottage. More magic? Was it safe to drink magic milk? Maybe it would make him grow like Alice in Wonderland's biscuits and mushrooms. He felt a bit like Alice, falling down the rabbit hole to a place where everything was wonderful and strange all at once.

The stove was very old-fashioned, mint-coloured enamel on spindly legs with a small range and knobs of cracked bakelite. Harry filled the kettle in the sink and set it to boil over a gas flame. There were mugs in a drying rack beside the sink, and Harry chose two, but the tin of tea confounded him. It was loose, and he didn't know what to do with tea that didn't come in bags.

He didn't have to wonder long. Lupin came in from a door Harry was almost certain hadn't been there, or had been a pantry only a moment before, and he shed his coat onto the back of a stool that tucked into the little table under the window. 'Never made a proper tea before?' he guessed, seeing Harry with the tin. He beckoned. 'Bring that, then, and would you please fetch another cup?'

'Is he here?' Harry asked, startled. 'Only I didn't think anyone else was home.'

'He's in bed. He doesn't leave his bed, much, these days.' Lupin found utensils in a drawer, and measured out several spoonfuls of tea leaves into a pot. 'I don't suppose there's anything in the cold cupboard? Ah- pork pie, that should hit the spot.' He found a tray laid with a lace doiley, and set it with small plates, forks, and the tea pot. 'Your water's boiling. To the fill line, there we are.' He capped the steaming pot as Harry returned the kettle to the stove. 'Missing anything? Ah, milk and sugar.' The fresh milk went into a small china crock, and a bowl of sugar cubes joined it on the tray. Then Lupin tapped the tray with his wand, and it rose all on its own, without either Lupin or Harry touching it, and floated after Lupin as he left the kitchen. Harry shook his head. Magic was dead useful.

They climbed two flights of stairs and walked a corridor that should have put them, if Harry's guess about the architecture of the outside of the cottage was correct, knocking over the back shed. At the end of the hall was a door, already open, and Harry thought Lupin must have already been here, because he walked in without knocking to announce himself. Harry slowed his steps, biting his lip, and finally stepped through. Best face it; he didn't want Lupin to think him a coward.

And it wasn't so bad as he'd been imagining, not really. An old man lay in a bed beneath a window propped open for the breeze, lace curtains blowing gently, and Lupin was settling the tea tray on the table next to him. The only thing that marked this as a sick room was the dozens of bottles already on that table, and an underlying smell of decay. Lupin was bent over the old man, fluffing his pillows and tucking the thin summer quilt over his lap. 'Better, Da?' he was asking.

'Stop fussing,' the old man croaked, but he had spied Harry lingering uncertainly in the door, and lifted a hand with thick fingers crooked like claws to gesture him sharply. Harry, long used to being ordered about and catching a thwack to the ear if he were slow at it, moved promptly to the foot of the bed, but once there he couldn't stop himself fidgeting. The old man was staring, and not precisely at Harry, but rather at Harry's forehead. Harry reached up to brush his hair flat over his old scar.

'It is him, then,' the old man said.

Lupin was pouring brewed tea through a strainer into one of the cups. 'Yes. It's him.'

'Knew your father,' the old man said abruptly. Harry jumped. 'Met him when he was about your age. You look just like him.'

Lupin smiled at Harry as he set the cup on absolutely nothing, mid-air, where it remained floating serenely over the old man's sunken chest. 'He does, doesn't he. Come to think of it, I believe I have an old picture. We'll look for it- you'd like to have that, I'm sure.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry said shyly.

'Speak up, boy,' the old man barked. 'No mumbling.'

'No shouting,' Lupin told him just as sternly, and poured a cup of tea for Harry. 'This rude fellow is, unfortunately, my father, Harry. Harry Potter, Lyall Lupin.'

'Looking forward to Diagon Alley, Potter?'

'Diagonally?' Harry repeated, glancing at Lupin for confirmation.

'Diagon Alley,' Lupin said, enunciating it clearly as two words. 'It's the Wizarding part of London. It's where we'll buy your school supplies and books.'

'Oh,' Harry said, suddenly feeling very foolish. He'd been so enchanted with his letter, a stiff square in his pocket even now, that he hadn't actually thought about events pertaining to it. 'I... I haven't any money, Professor Lupin.'

'Haven't any money?' the elder Lupin scoffed, spilling tea all over his quilt as he waved the cup about. The younger Lupin daubed him with a napkin and murmured something censorious. 'Haven't any money? RJ, haven't you told the boy anything?'

'No, as a matter of fact,' Lupin replied. 'And I'll continue to do it in my own time, thank you kindly.'

'You,' his father dismissed him, and turned those watery eyes back to Harry. 'Come sit here, boy _bach_. I don't bite. Now. Since my son has told me you've been raised amongst Muggles, and he's done nothing to alleviate your ignorance, I can at least ease this fear. Do you know anything of the Potters?'

'I know my grandfather's name was Fleamont,' Harry said. 'And my gran's was You-you-'

'Euphemia,' the old man nodded. 'She was a great beauty in her day. That rascal Fleamont certainly thought so. Nearly forty years younger than her, but he had an eye for her handsome face and she had an eye for his handsome fortune. An excellent match. And when her brother, your great-uncle Aluminous, died without heirs, his fortune went to Euphemia, and so between them your father James was born with a silver spoon, and a silver knife and fork besides, and that's to say nothing of the silver platters he ate on.'

'He's waxing eloquent,' Professor Lupin said, with a little eyeroll. 'Heaven help us.'

'Hush,' Lyall Lupin informed him. 'Now, Mr Potter, my son teaches at your school, yes?'

'At Crowhill? Yes, sir. Maths.'

'Is he a good teacher?'

'Yes,' Harry said truthfully, but Lupin was sitting right there sipping his tea, and Harry hastily added, 'One of the best. The best at Crowhill.'

'Thank you, Harry. Stop tormenting the boy, Da.'

'I told you to hush, young man.' Mr Lupin put a hand over Harry's. His skin was papery and warm, soft and bird-boned. Harry held it gently. 'Now. Did your Professor here teach you how to put one and one together?'

'Sums? Yes...'

'Then what do you make of a wealthy father and your need to purchase school supplies, Mr Potter?'

'I-' Harry looked quickly at his professor. 'I have money?'

'Your parents left you a considerable inheritance, yes,' Lupin said. He rotated his mug between his hands twice, and set it on his knee without quite meeting Harry's eyes. 'Much of it will be held in trust til you come of age, with provisions of funds for your schooling. But... some of it... some was designated as a stipend for your guardians, and I believe that, given the circumstances of your- your transfer to Crowhill Boys' Home, that stipend is likely still being paid to your relatives.'

No-one spoke in the little while that followed. Harry didn't, certainly, and neither Mr Lupin interrupted him thinking, and what he was thinking went around in ever-tighter circles. He had money. A good lot of money. Except for what went to pay for his upkeep, which was not being paid to Crowhill Boys' Home, but to the people who had assured Harry was dumped there seven years ago. His Aunt and Uncle who had decided not to keep him, and had got rid of him before he was old enough to find his way back to them, or even know their full names and address to lead the police back to them. They were stealing. That was stealing, wasn't it? To take money they weren't earning, all these years?

'Are they poorly?' he asked at last, past the odd scratchy catch in his throat. 'Do they need it for my cousin?'

'This is why I was going gently,' Lupin told the old man, and put his cup down decisively on the tray. 'No, Harry, I won't pretend they need it. They might never have lived a lavish life, without it, but it would have ensured you never wanted for anything. And if you would like to decide they can no longer have it, that's the first thing we'll do in Diagon Alley. But there are reasons not to, just yet, if you can stand the idea of them taking it from you dishonestly.'

Harry forced a swallow with the aid of sugary tea. His head felt very hot and the rest of him very cold. 'Reasons?'

'For all intents and purposes, the money has hidden the fact that you're no longer there. So long as that money is dispensed regularly, there is no reason to question the transaction. No reason to wonder whether your care is, as such, managed by the Dursleys as part of that exchange.'

'Well... who would care if it weren't?'

'RJ,' old Mr Lupin said, sounding absolutely aghast at something. Harry raised his head curiously, and saw the old man glaring at his son. 'Have you not even told the child who he is?'

'Da-'

'He's Harry bloody Potter!'

'Language, Da!' Lupin stood. 'Harry, please help me wash these things in the kitchen. Father, take your nap. Now.'

'I'd druther take you over my knee, you stubborn goat-'

'The next time I bring you tea it's going to be dosed with Draught of Sleep,' Lupin threatened. 'I have my reasons for doing it this way, and you're-' Lupin heaved his deepest sigh yet, and grabbed the tea tray by hand. 'Kitchen, Harry, please. We'll not do this shouting over one another.'

And that was how Harry heard the whole story. It took a long time to tell it; the sun outside the windows went a deep orange and the wind died down to make everything very still, then bit by bit woke up again, and with it the buzz of insects and chirp of birds and all the night sounds of the country, which Harry had never heard before, but was only peripherally aware of now. At some point Lupin went to the cold cupboard and fetched him a cola, and another cup of tea for himself, but other than that they just sat at the small table in the kitchen beneath the window, and Lupin talked.

Harry Potter was famous.

Harry Potter was famous for the same reason Harry Potter was an orphan.

There was a man- a man who was both more and less than a man- who called himself a Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord had killed a good many people, and two of those people had been Harry's parents. He had come to their house in the dark of night when Harry was just a baby, and he had killed Harry's parents, and tried to kill Harry, too, but the magic had gone wrong. And that had been the end of the Dark Lord, except that Lupin knew- certain people knew, Lupin said, clever people studied in the ways of dark magic, who knew that no-one as twisted as a Lord of dark magic, a man who had twisted dark magic to such ends to serve himself- they knew the Lord was not truly dead, only wounded, and that one day he might come back.

'Come back,' Harry said, speaking for the first time in hours. 'For me, do you mean?'

Lupin met his eyes. 'Yes, Harry, I do mean that.'

Harry drew a deep breath and held it. 'And the whole world knows who I am? Who my parents were?'

'Heroes,' Lupin said. 'Martyrs.'

'I thought they died in a car crash,' Harry said. Lupin only shook his head, and Harry clenched his hands about his empty bottle. 'I have a... I have a dream, sometimes. About a bright light, and a lady screaming. I thought it was the car crash, but it's not.'

'No,' Lupin agreed quietly. 'I'm sorry you remember that.'

'I'm not. Not now.' It was more to think about than Harry had had in all his life, and he didn't know how he'd ever think about all of it as much as it needed thinking about, deserved thinking about. 'So... when I go to Hogwarts...'

'The whole Wizarding World will know, yes.'

'And Voldemort.'

'And the people who used to support Voldemort.'

'They're not all in jail?'

As soon as he said it, he was aware it was naive. He knew- who better?- that the world was not fair, and that bad deeds didn't get punished, not always, anyway. Or his Aunt and Uncle would be in jail for giving him away the way they had, leaving him alone in the middle of the night with nothing but a name and ten pounds. Harry's ten pounds.

But Lupin didn't chide him. He just said, 'Some are. Some were, and aren't now. And, Harry, they will be watching the calendar very closely. Your name went down in the Hogwarts rolls as soon as you were born, and anyone paying the least amount of attention will be counting down the days to your eleventh birthday. They expect you to come out of hiding, now. It would be foolish to believe anything other than that some of Voldemort's supporters are waiting for you, and for the opportunity to do something about you.'

'About me?'

'To you.' Lupin looked at him for a long time, then. He said, softly, 'I don't want to frighten you, Harry. I believe you will be safe at Hogwarts, I do. As safe as you can be anywhere.'

'Even at Crowhill? I mean- I mean, if it's so dangerous, maybe I shouldn't leave?' His heart sank even suggesting it, at even the thought of losing out on all the wondrous things he would see at Hogwarts- staircases that moved, ghosts that talked to you, people flying on brooms, to say nothing of the single wish he had now, to do magic of his own. But he made himself say it nonetheless. 'If it's safer not to be Harry Potter, maybe I shouldn't be.'

'I don't think there's a force on Earth that could stop you being Harry Potter,' Professor Lupin answered solemnly. 'To hide your magic and your heritage would be a terrible thing, even if it could be done. All this means is that we should be careful, Harry, and keep our eyes open.' He covered Harry's hand briefly with his own. 'All right?'

'All right, sir.'

'Then let's think of something else entirely for a while, and let all that settle. Let's go wake that horrid old man who calls himself my father. If he's strong enough for all that rot earlier, he's strong enough for a trip to town for dinner. And to Glaslyn Ices, I didn't forget I promised that. And then a good night's sleep, so you can have a proper good time in Diagon Alley tomorrow.'

Harry was willing enough to put aside his thousand questions, if only because his stomach rumbled then. It was nearly six, and he was quite hungry, his appetite all undeterred by thoughts of dark wizards hunting for him. 'Sir?' he asked, taking his bottle to the sink. 'I meant to ask. Diagon Alley, it's in London? Why didn't we go there first?'

'Ah, for a bit of magical transportation you'll like better than Apparation, I wager. My father's on the Floo network.'

'The what?' Harry turned about, and saw Lupin looking at him with a peculiar half-smile. 'What?'

'Harry Potter, there's so much to show you.' Lupin's half-smile became a whole grin. 'I can hardly wait.'

Harry almost bounced out of his bed in the morning, waked by the yellow spear of sunlight through the curtains. The room Lupin had given him for the night was all his own, but that excitement paled at the thought of what awaited him on the other side of sleep. By the time Lupin fetched him for breakfast, Harry had showered in the en suite and dressed himself and even attempted to tame his hair- not quite successfully. Harry clattered down the stairs, remembering only after he'd raised enough racket for a jungle of monkeys that the professor's father was probably still abed, but Lupin allayed that concern as he seated Harry at the small table in the kitchen.

'His medicine puts him well under,' Lupin said, when Harry tried to apologise. 'I shouldn't worry. I hope you'll forgive him not seeing us away.'

'Of course.' Harry seized the glass of orange squash Lupin set before him, gulping it. 'Sir? What's wrong with him?'

'An untreated rheumatic jinx. My father was a dueller when he was young, and it's not uncommon for duellers to suffer long-term affects.' Lupin set a toast rack on the table, and a pot of redcurrant preserve. 'Duelling is an excessively risky past-time, and as such boys fall all over themselves trying to out-do each other showing off. Your father duelled Siri- a boy at school, once, over the grand prize of a handkerchief that didn't even turn out to belong to your mum.'

'There's duelling at Hogwarts?' Harry asked, deeply impressed for all the eyebrows Lupin raised at him.

'Let a professor catch you at it and it's worth a month's detention,' Lupin said primly, and set Harry a plate of eggs, soggy tomatoes, and beans. 'I trust you can read between the lines, Mr Potter.'

'Don't get caught, sir?' Harry inhaled a massive forkful of egg. 'Shouldn't you be telling me not to duel?'

'I thought I'd save that breath for something you'll actually listen to.' Lupin took a bite of his toast. 'To wit: chew, Harry. It will all still be there whenever we arrive.'

That didn't stop Harry jiggling with impatience as Lupin took for _ever_ getting ready. He was bouncing in place when Lupin (finally!) took him by the shoulders and walked him through the cottage to a room empty but for a massive fireplace and a lot of old sooty footprints on the bare wood floor. Lupin took down a dusty old pot from the mantel and tipped it toward Harry. 'Floo powder,' he said. 'Take a good fistful and hold tight.' Harry did, scooping up a palmful of sandy grains and trying not to lose any. Lupin took a handful of his own and replaced the pot. He pointed his wand at the grate, and pronounced a brisk, ' _Incendio!_ '

Harry bounced harder. Now that was a proper spell! Flames burst out of the empty grate and surged head-high in the big stone chimney, washing heat in their direction. 'Now what?' he asked eagerly.

'We'll throw in our Floo powder, say the name of where we're going, and step into the fire.'

Harry cast his professor a dubious glance. Magic was one thing, but that was barmy.

'I'll go first, so you can work from my example. The Floo won't be as unsettling as Apparation, but you may find it disorientating. Watch for me- I'll wait at our stop. Ready?'

'Er,' Harry said.

Lupin flung in his handful of powder, and the flames turned green with a whoosh. Lupin said clearly, 'Diagon Alley.' Then, calm and collected as ever, he put one foot into the fire, and then he vanished.

Harry let out a trembling breath. Right.

'Diagon Alley,' he said, or sort of shouted, just in case, and threw his powder all over the fire, and closed his eyes just in case it hurt, and stuck out a foot, wobbled, and fell in.

It wasn't as bad as Apportioning, but only just. He tumbled and tumbled, maybe because he'd already been tumbling when he started, and everything was green and fiery but moving, like being in the car watching signposts fly past at speed. But there! That was Professor Lupin, waving at him from a big bright hole ahead, and Harry put out a hand to grab at him as he went whooshing past, and felt Lupin grasp his wrist. There was an almighty tug, and Harry was out, finishing his pratfall face-first into a hard stone floor.

'Oh, Harry.' Lupin righted him. 'Oh, I'm sorry. I tried to catch you-'

'That,' Harry gasped, 'was brilliant.'

Lupin stifled a laugh. He helped Harry to his feet, and removed his wand from his sleeve. 'Let's fix those glasses, at least. _Reparo_.' The crack in the left lense vanished with a little clink, and got maybe a smidge clearer than it had ever been before. Harry beamed at the professor.

'First thing's first,' Lupin announced. 'Gringott's.'

Everything was wonderful. In fact, everything was more wonderful than the thing before it. Lupin kept them moving, though not so fast that Harry couldn't stare around him, agog with sights out of the most fantastic of dreams. The fireplace they'd let out at was in a smoky old pub, but the dishes were cleaning themselves from the booths and the drinks pouring themselves and Harry was sure he heard something roar overhead like a lion, following by a thunderous belch. Outside the Leaky Cauldron they were in, well, an alley, he supposed he'd expected that, but never an alley like this, where all the buildings seemed to lean on each other crookedly and tower straight up like the mountains in Wales. There were horses in the street pulling carriages, and some carriages pulling themselves, and everywhere there were people wearing the most outlandish clothes, big long robes in every imaginable colour and some Harry thought had probably been better off unimagined. And there were birds everywhere- no- owls, owls everywhere, hooting and flying and no-one seemed to think it at all odd, and he swore the owls were carrying things in their beaks and claws that looked like post, wrapped in old-fashioned brown paper and string or written on parchment like his letter from Hogwarts. And then they were at Gringott's, the Wizarding bank, but it wasn't a bank like the one Harry had seen at home, a squat little office in a dirty beige building. This was made all of white marble and gold, and there were banners flapping in the breeze, and they climbed up big broad steps that made Harry think maybe this wasn't a bank at all, but a palace for the most fabulous King of Magic, and then he stopped thinking at all, because when they stepped inside the big black doors, Harry met his first goblin.

And a hush fell.

Harry wasn't aware of it at first, occupied with trying to stare as politely as he could. When he felt Lupin's hand close on his shoulder, though, he realised that the goblin was looking at him in exactly the same way, and so were all the other goblins, a double row of them seated at desks high on platforms to either side of a long red carpeted queue. And the one who was standing in front of Harry had evidently been waiting for them, because it didn't look surprised at all. Well, it didn't look much of anything other than menacing, with pointed teeth protruding from blackened lips, and straggly hair hanging over its sloping forehead and pinpoint dark eyes and big hooked nose, shorter even than Harry and dressed in a very proper pinstripe suit, all the more peculiar for the way it stood absolutely statue-still.

'And who have we here?'

Harry jumped. The goblin's voice emerged as if through a throat full of broken glass, and it seemed to have difficulty speaking past all those teeth. But he didn't need Lupin's squeeze to his shoulder to remind him of his manners. Harry put out his hand, and said, 'Hullo, sir. I'm Harry Potter.'

The goblin's beady eyes darted to Harry's hand. Very slowly, it raised its own hand- well, the four thick fingers capped with talon-like fingernails- and shook with Harry. 'Welcome, young Mr Potter,' the goblin grated. 'A... pleasure, to meet you at last.'

'And a pleasure,' Lupin said softly, 'to meet with you discreetly.'

The goblin glanced up at Lupin. Harry thought it curled its lip, just a little, but it was a little hard to tell for certain. 'If you would please follow me, Mr Potter, and your- companion.'

'Professor Lupin?'

'It's all right, Harry.'

Activity slowly resumed as they walked down the long queue. Chatter rose again, and big ledger books went zooming by overhead, summoned to the various desks they passed. To a one, every goblin stared at Harry til he and Lupin had passed, and Harry hunched his shoulders, stepping a little closer to Lupin. He wasn't terribly used to being seen. At Crowhill, he was only visible when he was in trouble, and though he didn't know what he could have done to goblins, Lupin's warnings from last night were fresh in his mind, his excitement momentarily washed away with unease. They made a sharp left at the head of the queue, and the goblin waddled awkwardly in his shined shoes to an office. The latch was goblin-height, not human-height, but the desk was sized to the customers expected to sit in the chairs facing the goblin, and Harry felt a bit of delight sneaking back in when he saw the short ramp of stairs the goblin climbed to its elegant seat behind the desk. Once there, it took up a long eagle-feather quill with a silver nib, dipped it in a pot of ink, and opened the heavy ledger on the desk.

'Potter,' it said in its harsh bark, and the pages flipped themselves rapidly, fanning to somewhat past halfway and settling smoothly. 'Ah, yes,' the goblin said, making a small tick in one of a dozen columns on the page. 'Harry James, only son of James and Lily Potter, died-'

'The boy is not yet eleven,' Lupin interrupted. 'Please be kind with your words.'

The goblin looked up. Its lip was definitely curled, when it looked at Lupin, but that look- angry? Harry didn't know quite what it was, or why- faded when it turned its eyes to Harry.

'Of course,' it said. 'My apologies. Mr Potter, I see you have not taken possession of your key.'

'My key?' Harry asked.

'Every vault has a key. Yours has been checked out, but not yet delivered.'

Lupin tapped his fingers on his knee. 'I thought this might happen. To whom was the key checked out?'

'That information is private.'

'Private?' Lupin pressed, his voice oddly thin. 'Like the contents of Mr Potter's vaults?'

The goblin blinked first. 'Albus Dumbledore provided a written request.'

'Albus Dumbledore is not the boy's guardian, nor did he have Mr Potter's permission.'

'He had the permission of the guardian.'

'I do not believe the Dursleys would have provided permission willingly.'

'Black,' the goblin said.

Harry observed with interest and alarm that Lupin took the goblin's statement with a look like a man receiving a body blow. His chest rose and fell rapidly beneath his shirt, his lips pressed together so tightly they whitened from the pressure. In an even tighter voice, Lupin said, 'I do not believe that would have been provided willingly, either.'

'It was recorded in 1980 as part of the official will and testimony of James and Lily Potter, in the event of their-' The goblin looked at Harry. 'Inability to escort their son to his vault at the proper time.'

Lupin rallied, though he was still pale. 'And Headmaster Dumbledore has had Mr Potter's key since that time?'

'Yes.'

'Well. Headmaster Dumbledore is not here, and the boy is. I trust accommodation can be made, given the circumstances.'

'The word "willing" has been spoken twice.' The goblin turned fully to face Harry, stroking the feather of the quill between its claws. 'I should like a statement from Mr Potter as to his willingness to retrieve funds with this... person... at his side.'

'It's for school things,' Harry said, unsure why it mattered. 'I'm very willing.'

'Satisfied?' Lupin asked coolly. 'Or would you prefer a blood oath?'

'A signature will do. I have no use for blood like yours.'

'We could just go,' Harry whispered, uncomfortable. 'Or come back another day.'

The goblin bent its head to the ledger, and wrote a long sentence in ink that flashed like the spark from Lupin's wand had. 'That is not necessary, Mr Potter. Access can be granted. I cannot revoke the key, as it was rightfully provided, but I can provide you with statements of your accounts and the promise to alert you of any withdrawals other than your own.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'My name, Mr Potter, is Griphook.' The goblin blew across the page, and closed the ledge with a thump. 'If you'll come with me, I will show you to your vault.'

Harry had seen pictures of Alton Towers, from Jeremy who'd been there before his mum had died, but the roller coasters there had nothing on the tilt-a-whirl miners' carts that flew off into the dark caves. What was it with magic and all the flying about? Harry didn't know and didn't care- it was wonderful. He hollered when they swooped and fell upside down long enough for his bum to actually leave his seat. Lupin looked a little green by the time they braked to a screeching halt, but Harry was exhilirated and laughing. Lupin's hand brushed fondly at Harry's hair.

'You look like you've been in a whirlwind,' he said. 'Here you are. It will hold as much as you like to take with you.'

Harry poked a finger into the depths of the bag Lupin gave him. He couldn't feel the bottom, even when he put his entire fist inside, and then his entire arm. He peeked, but it was too dark to tell if he could see the bottom or not.

'There are greater wonders within the vault, Mr Potter,' said Griphook.

Harry clambered out of the cart. 'Professor? You coming?'

'No. Your vault is for you alone. I'll wait for you.'

'Oh.' Harry wavered. But he thought he understood, so he said, 'Thank you, sir. I'll only be a moment.'

'Take as long as you like,' Lupin answered, smiling.

Harry had thought a vault would be like, well, a cabinet with some money in it. The Potter vault was definitely bigger than a cabinet! It was more like Scrooge McDuck's tower of gold, bags and stacks of money everywhere he looked, and Harry goggled at it. He had never, ever, in his life imagined so much money, and this was just his? And there were things, too, a corner with frumpy antique chairs, and over there a collection of hatboxes and a glass-covered tray of hat pins and snuff boxes and cufflinks, and over there a crate of paintings- Harry leapt for that, first, but none of the paintings seemed to be very modern, like Lupin's portrait of his mum, and he fell back, disappointed. It would have been wonderful to have a painting of his parents. He turned, and giggled despite his dejection. Professor Lupin's father had been right- there was a whole mess hall's worth of silver spoons, and knives and forks besides, and an awful lot of heavy silver platters.

'Mr Potter's parents set aside a sum of five hundred galleons a year for school-related expenditures,' Griphook the goblin said from the door.

'Oh, er... what's a galleon?'

Silently Griphook pointed a talon at the gold. 'Gold for galleons,' the goblin said, 'silver for sickles, and bronze for knuts.'

'There's only three coins? No fifty-p, or ten-p or anything? Or paper money?' Griphook shook his head. 'Doesn't all this gold get, well, heavy?'

'That is why most wizards prefer goblins to manage it for them, Mr Potter.'

Harry picked up a gold coin. It was rather large, much bigger than a pound coin. He put several into his bag, and then stopped. Five hundred for a whole year? 'Mr Griphook? How much do you think I'll need for school supplies? What's, what's normal costs?'

'I'm afraid I don't know the particulars, never having attended British wizarding school myself.' Griphook gazed unblinking at him, but he seemed thoughtful, insofar as Harry could distinguish expression on his grim face and in the dark of the vault besides. 'For a first year student, purchasing many particulars for the first time to last the full seven years, I believe a common range is forty to fifty galleons.'

'Only that much? What would I spend all the rest on? Or is it all for paying to go to Hogwarts?'

'Your tuition is already paid, Mr Potter. The rest is for personal expenses. Or to save. If it is not spent, it will continue to earn interest.'

'Interest?'

'Three percent, Mr Potter. Very competitive.' Griphook's eyes gleamed a little. 'We could, if you were so inclined, set up investments...'

'Harry,' Lupin called from outside, and Harry jumped. Griphook shot a nasty look out the door. Harry reckoned the goblin thought Lupin was eavesdropping on them, and maybe the Professor was, but it reminded Harry of his business. He counted out fifty of the big gold coins for his bag, and then fifty more, and then twenty again, just because the notion of having money was still so new and he thought he might like to look at it sometimes, to remind himself he could never want for anything again, not with treasure like this.

'Mr Griphook,' he asked, 'the Headmaster of Hogwarts, he's the one who has my key?'

'He is.'

'Did he ever take out any of the money?'

'It was he who directed the monthly stipend for your care to your Muggle relatives.'

Harry counted out coins up to another hundred. Lupin had said the bag would hold as much as he liked, and Harry thought maybe he would like to put all five hundred in there, just to stop the Dursleys getting it, but he could see how many coins littered his vault, far more than five hundred times seven years, and so he drew the string tight and hung the bag from his wrist. 'I'm finished,' he said, and Griphook nodded and stood aside, but as Harry walked to the door his attention was caught- truly caught, snared as if he had no choice about it, something tugging at his mind- and he realised he'd stopped dead staring down at a small cardboard box labelled, simply, 'Godric's Hollow'.

'Ah,' Griphook said, taking a step toward him, to stand at his elbow. 'The final deposit to this account, Christmas of 1981. These, Mr Potter, are certain effects from your parents, from their home in Godric's Hollow.'

'Theirs?' Harry knelt before the box. The tugging in his mind was terribly insistent, now, and he watched his hands reach as if of their own accord for the lid of the box. 'But they were dead by then, weren't they? Who sent it?'

'It was sent anonymously, Mr Potter.'

There was a bit of peeling old tape binding down the lid. Harry thought he could just pluck it off and then he could see what was inside. Things from his parents, things from their house, maybe things he would remember even if he had just been a baby-

'Harry.'

Harry jerked his head up. Griphook was back at the door, scowling now, and Lupin was crouched beside Harry, gripping his hands tightly just an inch away from the box lid. 'You let an object under a geas in here?' Lupin was snarling at Griphook. 'Knowing this boy's enemies? I'll be making a formal complaint.'

'Many of the Old Blood have enchanted possessions in their vaults,' the goblin said sullenly. 'And thousands of those for thousands of wizards. We cannot personally inspect every-'

'Cannot but when you choose to,' Lupin snapped. 'Harry, stay back.' He had his wand in his hand, and swirled it in a circled over the box, encompassing the whole outer circumference, and his eyes were narrowed in concentration. 'It seems to be a simple compulsion,' he muttered, absently stopping Harry from reaching for it again, though Harry blushed when he realised his hands had gone grasping without his conscious direction. 'And aimed at Harry, or at least at a Potter. But not cursed, not Dark.' He tucked Harry's hands back into Harry's lap, and flicked his wand firmly over the box. _'Finite Incantatem.'_

The box gave off a startled little glow of gold, and then it seemed to sag, just a little bit. Harry blinked, realising he no longer felt the need to open it, though his curiosity was stronger than ever. Still, he had no trouble letting Lupin be the one to strip the tape, and remove the lid.

Lupin's shoulders fell, and he looked both relieved, Harry thought, and oddly sad. 'Their wands,' he said. 'Of course. The wands would know you.'

It seemed safe to peer over Lupin's shoulder. Harry saw a jumble of things in the box, paper and scrolls and a small stuffed dragon- Harry's gut seized tight. It must have been his, as a baby. His parents had given it to him, and must have given him that blanket, too, that lay in the bottom of the box, a soft blue baby blanket that, yes, had his name, Harry, stitched in the hem. He was reaching, this time entirely of his own desire to feel that blanket in his hands and imagine his parents wrapping him tight in it, but his knuckle brushed over something wooden on the way, and a shock ran up his entire body to make his hair stand on end.

Lupin's eyes were overbright, and his voice was thick with old grief. 'Lily's wand,' he said. 'And maybe more than that, now. Go on. Take it.'

Harry had never held a wand before, but his fingers didn't know that. They found a sure grip, his forefinger sliding up to a little groove in the shaft, his small through middle fingers wrapping around the hilt. The shock ran through him again, through the entire vault, rattling all the coins with a crashing wave, a wave of tingling warmth like he'd felt when Lupin had given him his Hogwarts letter, but real, maybe the realest thing he'd ever felt. He felt like he could fly, he felt like he could blast down a mountain, he felt- he felt magic, and he felt love.

'And done,' Griphook said, with ringing satisfaction. 'Well come, Harry Potter. Well come.'

'And done,' Lupin echoed softly, and then put his arms about Harry and hugged him. It was the first time an adult had ever done that to Harry, and he was too abashed to return it, but it didn't last long, anyway. Lupin seemed embarrassed of himself when he pulled back, but he was smiling, and that Harry could return, a huge grin he couldn't help. He had a wand, a special wand, the most special wand he could possibly have had. His mother's wand.

'You're a proper wizard now,' Lupin said.

'I am,' Harry said, and believed it.


	3. Hoggy Hoggy Hogwarts

_In Which A House Becomes A Home._

'Here you are, boy.' Harry encouraged the dog toward him with one hand beckoning, the other dangling a soggy strip of last night's toad in the hole with a thick sausage in it. The dog's shaggy tail wagged tentatively, his pointed ears pricking, and then it darted forward, snagged the offering out of Harry's hand and made short work of it. Then it was up and sniffing Harry's pockets, one after the other, and Harry laughed as a cold nose butted him this way and that.

'You greedy thing,' he giggled. 'Here, here.' He dug out the squishy bag of roast potatoes, carefully hoarded from all the boys' plates during kitchen duty. 'Not as good when they're not fresh,' Harry said, dumping them into his palm for the dog to lick up, 'not that you would mind, I suppose.' He rubbed the dog's ears, and it tilted its head back to guide Harry's fingers to the right spot, jaws dropping open in a doggy grin. 'I've told Marcus about you,' Harry said. 'He'll look after you when I've gone.'

The dog's head snapped down with a whine. Harry thought that was funny- it was almost like the dog could understand him. Probably it was just hungry, still. Harry scratched his fingers through the thick fur on the dog's bony ribcage. Poor thing. 'I'm a little terrified,' Harry confessed, settling himself against the trunk of the tree. The dog sat, too, its big warm chest resting against Harry's shoulder. 'I know I'll like it there, just because it's not here. I don't suppose here was so very horrible... but I never really fit in, here. At least now I suppose I know why. Professor Lupin reckons that time I was on the roof? He says that was accidental magic. I did magic and I didn't even know it! He says when children are very angry or very scared or- very sad, they can do things without even understanding how to do them.' He was silent, for a while, petting the dog. 'Still,' he said. 'It would've been nice to be normal. To have a family. Even if it couldn't be my real family. I asked Professor Lupin, you know, if magic could do it. Make the parents want the kids here. He said it could, but it wouldn't be real love.' Harry heaved a sigh. 'I think that's what made me realise. Magic can't fix everything.'

The dog nudged at Harry's cheek with its cold nose, knocking his glasses askew. Harry righted them with a reluctant grin. 'I will miss you,' he said. 'I hope you're all right here. Maybe you can find a family, too.'

'Potter!'

Harry jerked upright. 'Gotta go,' he said, scrambling to his feet. 'Oh- here, almost forgot.' He had stowed a pear in his shirt. It was overripe, and as soon as the dog bit into it a shower of sticky juice sprayed over them both, but Harry only laughed and wiped his glasses on his sleeve. 'Be good,' he told the dog, daring to hug the dog and getting a juicy lick to his cheek in reply. 'Maybe I'll see you again this summer!'

Mr Thompkins was waiting for Harry at the edge of the portico. He was holding the rake, but though Harry stared at him warily, Mr Thompkins didn't make a move toward him. There was a slightly glassy look in his eye, and he was neither upset nor angry, it seemed. 'There you are, Potter,' he said. 'Well, in you go.'

'Yeah,' Harry said. 'I mean, yes, sir.' He inched up the stairs past Mr Thompkins. Safe. Harry didn't question it. He ran inside, into the crowd of boys headed out for morning classes.

* * *

Professor Lupin was ill the entirety of Harry's last week at Crowhill.

As August wound to a close, the dreary heat was only mildly alleviated by the usual appearance of summer visitors. There were lots of prospective parents making the rounds through Crowhill Boys Home, and they took three boys away with them. Harry had rather given up the idea of adoption for himself, even before he'd known about Hogwarts, so he wasn't fussed as he might have been. Like the older boys who knew they weren't in the running, really, he hung back indifferent to the excitement. The one thing he was determined at was that the most deserving of the youngsters would get their best chance, and Jimmy had been at pains to learn a new recital, so Harry went hunting for Professor Lupin and one of his passes for time to prepare. But Lupin was no-where to be seen, not in his office, not in the Teachers' Wing, not anywhere about.

'Tole ya,' Gaz said. 'He's got the disease.'

'Then why isn't he sick all the time?' Harry argued.

'Medicine's like that,' Marcus said quietly. 'They get a little better before they get worse. Sometimes they get a little better even before they die.'

Marcus's dad had gone from cancer. Harry worried at that. And began to worry, as well, how he was meant to get back to London. He packed and repacked all his things in the lovely wood and leather steamer trunk that had his name engraved on the gold nameplate, read through all his schoolbooks- well, looked at the pictures in all his schoolbooks, and even, in the dark when the others were asleep, practised flicking and swooping and twirling his wand the way the books showed. Professor Lupin had been quite clear that Harry wasn't allowed to do magic in the Muggle world until he was of age, which seemed impossibly far away, but surely it was all right to practise just the movements? And he had a thousand questions for every one answer he got, but Professor Lupin had vanished. Harry worried.

The last night before his Hogwarts term was to begin, he thought he would hardly sleep a wink. But he must have done, because one moment he was drooped over his Transfiguration text and the next Professor Lupin was crouched beside his bunk, shaking Harry gently by the shoulder.

'Wake up, sleepy-head,' Professor Lupin murmured. Harry blinked at him, and Professor Lupin handed him his glasses. Harry hooked them over his ears and sat up on his elbows. It was quite dark, and Marcus was snoring overhead, and Gaz was mumbling in his sleep on the other side of the bedroom. 'It's nearly six,' Professor Lupin said softly. 'We'll want to be getting on the road, if we're to make it to King's Cross Station by eleven.'

'Where've you been?' Harry blurted, though in a whisper.

Lupin folded Harry's textbook shut and put it away in the trunk, and strapped down the lid. 'Away. I'm sorry if you were concerned.'

'No, I'm only-' Harry launched himself before he quite knew he meant to do. Lupin went stiff, but then his hand came to rest hesitantly on Harry's back. He patted, once. Harry flushed hot red and eased away from his impromptu embrace.

'Thank you, Harry,' Lupin said, subdued. 'But I'm quite well. And very eager to get you to the Hogwarts Express for your first day.'

In the daylight Professor Lupin looked greyer and thinner than ever, but they spent the drive to London talking about Hogwarts, of course, and Lupin answered all the questions Harry had time to ask- if all wizards and witches could Apparate, why did anyone need an express train? 'Because of the anti-Apparation wards at Hogwarts, and I think it's rather a nice special thing, don't you, a train all to yourselves?'- and would he have to have kitchen duty at his new school? 'No, there are house elves who do the cooking and cleaning, and mind you be polite to them, that's quite a lot of work as you might imagine.'- which led, obviously, to what are house elves? 'If you're interested in elvish history, I can recommend a book for you, it should be in the Hogwarts' Library.' That shut Harry up for a bit; the last thing he wanted was assigned reading before he even attended a class! But Lupin took a sideways glance at Harry's face, and burst out laughing, and Harry grinned.

Harry was all nerves and excitement by the time they reached King's Cross Station in London. Professor Lupin fetched a handcart for Harry's trunk, and they walked through the station together. Harry had never been on a train, obviously, and found it immensely wonderful, all the people and the big gleaming engines and the noise that seemed to rise all up to the cavernous ceiling of the station arching high overhead. Professor Lupin showed him how to locate Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and they watched a rushing family of several gingers and their harried mother go running headlong through a seemingly impenetrable stone wall. Harry jiggled in place, itching to try it for himself.

But first Professor Lupin took him aside, in the shelter of a kiosk, and handed him a packed lunch for his satchel and then a small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper. 'A belated birthday gift. Don't open it now, but I hope it's something you'll enjoy.'

'Thank you, sir.' Harry stowed the parcel in his satchel, as well, and wiped sweating palms on his shirt. 'I just... I just walk through?'

'Take it at a good confident clip, yes.' Lupin gazed down at him with a faint frown between his eyebrows. 'I could go with you, if you should like me to.'

'But then wizards might see you and if they recognise you, they might find you at Crowhill, which would mean they'd find me,' Harry said, quite familiar with this logic, having agonised over it all summer.

'Yes,' Lupin agreed soberly. 'But, Harry-' He paused, holding his breath, and then letting it out in a rush. 'I can't ask you to lie all year. I should never have put this idea in your head.'

'But if they find out I'm not with my relatives they might send me to them for the summers,' Harry protested. 'I don't want to live with the Dursleys!'

'And you honestly want to come back to Crowhill?'

'To you,' Harry said, scowling, but Lupin went oddly pink, blinking rapidly. Harry reviewed what he'd said, and did some blushing of his own. 'I- I just mean I'd druther live forever at Crowhill than at all with people who'd steal from me and lie about me and give me away just because they don't like magic.'

He could hear Lupin swallow, though his professor wasn't quite meeting his eyes now. 'Well,' Lupin said, sounding slightly hoarse, 'I mean to make you a third option, but that must wait for the papers to come through. Harry- Harry, I- listen. If you change your mind, if you decide it's too difficult, or that you just had rather not, whatever the reason, tell the truth. You can trust Headmaster Dumbledore to have your safety in mind, and that may be more important than your comfort, do you understand me?'

Harry did. He was also quite positive that Headmaster Dumbledore could have bothered to ask Harry what he liked before deciding for him, never mind he'd been a baby when his parents died. And, after all, he hadn't been a baby all this time, and no-one had come looking for him to realise the Dursleys had got rid of Harry seven entire years ago. Harry didn't see why his comfort and his safety had to be two different things. He wasn't exactly happy at Crowhill, but he knew he'd be desperately miserable with his relatives, and if Professor Lupin was the only one clever enough to find him in all this time, he was safer there than anywhere else.

'Harry,' Professor Lupin said then. 'Speaking of safety. I don't want to distress you or frighten you, especially today, but there's something you should know.' He had a square of folded newspaper in his coat pocket, which he gave to Harry. Harry gaped at it- it must be a magical newspaper, because the words were moving and there was one of those moving magical photographs, of a man with straggly black hair and a big scruffy beard and he was draped all over in thick chains that writhed all over him while he threw his head back in a soundless cackle. The headline over the picture named him SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES.

'Who's this?' Harry asked. He looked up. 'Is he one of the bad wizards?'

'Yes,' Lupin nodded. 'A very dark wizard, I'm afraid.' He motioned for Harry to keep the article. 'You should know what he looks like, in case he tries to approach you somehow. He can't get onto Hogwarts grounds, I think- they'll be on the alert for him. I think it's rather more likely he'll be trying to contact his old crowd instead of looking for you, but you should be careful. No sneaking out of the castle at night, no leaving with strangers, and if you notice anything out of the ordinary-'

'Out of the ordinary?' Harry repeated disbelievingly.

Lupin acknowledged the irony of that with a dip of his head. 'You'll have to be the judge. But I think you've got keen instincts. If it feels wrong, find a teacher immediately. Promise me that?'

'I promise, sir.' Harry stuffed the article into his pocket. Lupin was wheeling the handcart about, aimed at that stone wall Harry was supposed to walk through as if people did that all the time. Well, people clearly did, and he wouldn't act like he was scared to do it. 'Sir?'

'You had best get moving. Give you time to settle before the train leaves.'

'Yes, sir. Just...'

'I'm sure everything will be fine, Harry, I don't want you to have any worries at all. Just a wise amount of caution, not fear.'

'Yes, sir. But, Professor Lupin?'

Lupin had only gone a step. He returned it, and reached out to tap Harry's chin with a finger. 'You'll hurt your lip, gnawing on it like that.'

'Sorry.' Harry chewed the inside of his cheek instead. 'Sir? What if I don't get into Gryffindor House, like my parents and you?'

Lupin arched an eyebrow. 'Is that what you've been worried about all day? Then you get into a different House.'

'Well- I mean, that's- it?'

'That's it.' Lupin cocked his head. 'Did you think I would be angry? I won't be. Harry, a House is just a team. A convenient way of organising classes and dormitories. You're going to know people from all different Houses, and people from different years. And, if it makes you feel any better, I wasn't a Gryffindor, you know.'

Harry hadn't. 'But... you were friends with my mum and dad?'

'Very dear friends. And for that matter, your mum's best friend was a Slytherin. So you see it doesn't matter a whit.'

That did make Harry feel better, though he wasn't sure he could say why, any more than he'd been able to articulate why the thought of Sorting to any House but Gryffindor made his stomach do uneasy flops. 'Can I write and tell you which one I do make, no matter which it is?'

'I hope you will do,' Lupin said, with his quiet smile. 'But don't worry about writing to your old Professor, you'll have too much fun to waste any waking time on that. Just know I'll be here, proud of you. And so would your parents have been.'

Harry made it through the barrier with his eyes closed and his lungs bursting with a big held breath and his palms so sweaty that he lost control of his handcart as soon as he was through, and had to trot after it to make a new grab before it knocked into a pair of girls running past. And- oh! The Hogwarts Express was absolutely beautiful. It was a proper old steam train, painted bright cheery red with black and gold trim, and smoke was billowing from the engine car, and even though it was only a few minutes til eleven the platform was still stuffed with people and they were proper wizards and witches, some of them in robes and some of them in the oddest possible clothes, as if they were trying very hard to figure out what regular people wore and had watched all the wrong movies. A portly man hugging a small boy wore a top hat and a yellow macintosh, and to their right was a woman in a huge skirted ball gown that glittered with black sequins, like the brim of her baseball hat. An elderly man was waving good-bye with hands covered in half-burnt oven mitts. Harry laughed, his excitement restored. Being magic was going to be absolutely brilliant!

His trunk was too heavy to carry, and he was getting no-where dragging it through the crowded platform. He walked backwards with it, stumbling til his calves it the steps of one of the cars, and then he tried to climb and haul and fall backwards, not forwards, huffing and puffing with the strain- which vanished abruptly as two big boys appeared from the platform to seize it away. Harry nearly protested til one of the boys tossed him a bright grin, and then they were stepping over him, carrying his trunk in right over Harry's head and into the luggage rack.

'Hiya,' said one, thrusting out a hand. 'I'm Fred.'

'No, I'm Fred,' said the other, and Harry blinked, thinking he was seeing double, but they stood shoulder to shoulder over him and he realised they must be twins. Perfectly identical twins, down to the jumpers they were wearing and the slightly crooked cut of their hair. 'I'm Fred, he's George.'

'We're Forge,' they said together, and shook Harry's hand together. 'You a firstie?'

'First- year, yeah,' Harry said, and let them pull him up into the car. 'I'm Harry.'

'They get smaller every year,' said the one who'd introduced himself as Fred first, and his brother nodded wisely. 'Well, Harry, here's the run-down. Find yourself a car and settle in. It's a long ride, so you have time to practise.'

'Practise? Practise magic?'

'No, silly. Practise for the troll.'

'The- troll?'

'He doesn't know about the troll, George.'

'It's appalling, the state of education in Britain today.' One of the twins put his hand on Harry's shoulder the way Lupin always did. 'The Sorting Troll, my boy. That's how they'll pick your House at Hogwarts. The professors analyse your tactics and your offencive strategy- you have got an offencive strategy, haven't you?'

Harry suspected they were pulling his leg, but compared to goblins and dark wizards and flying on brooms he supposed this wasn't any stranger. To be safe, he pretended to take it seriously. It usually went better with the older boys at Crowhill if you at least acted like you were going along with their pranks.

'Leave off,' a new boy said, climbing aboard behind Harry. 'Are you all right, young man? These two aren't bothering you?'

'No, um- sir,' Harry said, espying a badge on the boy's shirt. The boy preened a bit at being thus addressed, but the twins rolled their eyes so severely they swayed on their feet.

'Sir!' one moaned, and the other clasped his hands to his chest and squeaked, 'Sir, your autograph, please, your sir-ness, please, Sir, can I please get-'

'Oh, get on with you,' the new boy told them crossly. 'The train's about to leave.'

All the compartments had people in them already, and Harry bypassed any that had the doors already closed against further intrusion. The twins met up with friends, and the boy with the badge did too, and Harry kept walking through the cars looking for a seat. It was with great relief when he finally found a compartment with only one boy in it, who looked up eagerly at his arrival. 'Can I-' Harry began.

'Yeah, come in!' Harry squeezed through the door and was presented with a hand. Harry gave it a squeeze, and they both quietly rubbed damp fingers against their trousers after and dithered in silence as Harry took a seat. 'You know Fred and George?' the boy asked.

'They helped with my trunk,' Harry said. 'You know them, though?'

'My brothers,' the boy said glumly. 'Oh. I'm Ron. Ronald Weasley.'

They nearly shook again by habit, but stopped themselves in time. 'Harry,' said Harry. 'Harry Potter.'

Ron's eyes went very wide. Oh, well, Harry thought. Even though Professor Lupin's father had known who he was and said he was famous, it was somehow different to see it in someone his age. Ron's eyes were on Harry's forehead, too. Harry brushed self-consciously at his hair, making sure it covered his scar.

'Um,' the boy said.

'You think you'll be in the same House as your brothers?' Harry asked quickly.

'Gryffindor.' Ron perked at this, before abruptly slumping. 'They say I won't be. I'd be the first Weasley in two hundred years not in Gryffindor.'

'Well, which House you reckon, then?'

'Dunno. I'm not clever enough for Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff, maybe? I don't really know much about the other Houses.'

'There's a fourth one,' Harry said, meaning to be comforting. 'Maybe you'll be a Slytherin.'

Ron went very pale and then very flushed in the space of a few seconds. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a wand, which he waved about in a clumsy threat. 'You take that back!'

'I didn't mean anything by it! What's wrong with Slytherin?'

'What's wrong with- what's wrong with-' Ron was all but spluttering, though he seemed slightly ashamed of himself for nearly attacking Harry. 'As good as call me a Dark Wizard, that!'

'I didn't know,' Harry defended himself. 'I never heard that about Slytherin before. I didn't even know I was a wizard til my Hogwarts letter came.'

'Really?' Ron was settling again, though two bright spots of colour lingered in his freckled cheeks. 'How, though? I mean, you're Harry Potter.'

'I guess I didn't really know what that meant, either.'

'No,' Ron said, 'really? That's wild. You've got to be the most famous person in the whole Wizarding World, aside from, well, from You-Know-Who.'

'Who?'

Ron was staring at him. 'You-Know-Who,' he said again.

'I really don't,' Harry said.

'You-Know-' Ron hunched forward and issued a squeaky whisper. ' _Who._ The one who gave you that scar!'

'Oh, Voldemort. Right.'

Ron acted like someone had just clashed a pair of giant cymbals in his ear. 'Don't say his name!'

Professor Lupin hadn't gone all to pieces over the name. He'd said it without ever flinching. 'All right,' Harry agreed, bewildered.

They had an hour of so of awkward quiet as the Express left the station and set out. Harry watched the scenery out the window, for a while, and listened to the chatter of all the other students that was a constant roar all around his compartment, but eventually he recalled the parcel Lupin had given him. He fetched it from his satchel and untied the string bow.

'What's that?' Ron asked, looking up from a collection of cards spread over his seat.

'My birthday gift,' Harry said. The staff of Crowhill always gave you something for birthdays, even if it was just socks or a new notebook or something, but Harry had never had a proper gift before. His heart fell a moment, when he peeled back the paper and confirmed what he'd already guessed from the shape- it was a book, and Professor Lupin was definitely the type to give books as gifts. But any hint of disappointment fled when Harry opened it, and saw what was inside it. It was an entire album of photographs: beautiful Wizarding photographs of Harry and his mum and his dad.

'Pictures?' Ron came to sit beside him. 'Is that you?'

'That's me.' Harry reverently touched the edges of the first picture, pasted centre of the page. He was very small, and those were his green eyes, but there was no scar on his forehead. It was strange to see that, but Harry spared little thought for his own image. It was his parents he stared at. He did look just like his father, except that James Potter was a tall strong man with a square jaw, and his hair was just as messy as Harry's was today, blowing in an invisible breeze and flopping over his round spectacles. He had an arm about the woman at his side, and Harry met his mother's eyes for the first time he could remember. She was so beautiful it stole all his breath. Her hair was a lighter red than Ron's, with honey highlights all through the long soft length of it, and her eyes were as green as Harry's, that strange too-green colour that meant, Lupin said, he was magic. And her smile, her smile was so kind and soft, it was exactly what he'd always imagined. In the picture she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and pressed her pink lips to baby Harry's crown of dark hair, and smiled at the Harry of today.

'So that's them,' Ron said. His voice had fallen to a respectful hush. 'Everyone knows about your mum and dad, you know.'

'I didn't. I thought they died in a car crash.'

'That's awful, mate.' Ron patted his arm with sympathy. 'So no-one told you anything? _The Daily Prophet_ 's been running stories about you all year. No-one knows where you've been all these years. Fred and George reckon you were in an underground bunker somewhere being trained up as a warlock.'

'No,' Harry said, tearing his eyes off his mum and flipping to the next page. There were four photographs there, all much older, his parents in their school uniforms and Professor Lupin's precise handwriting labelling the names of everyone in the pictures with them. Harry drank it in.

'In America with Batman?'

'Batman?' Harry laughed. 'No.'

'Bill says Dumbledore probably took you on as his apprentice, and that you'd already be at Hogwarts all along, 'cause there's no-one You-Know-Who would fear as much as Dumbledore.'

Harry hadn't thought of it precisely that way before. 'No,' he said shortly. 'No, Dumbledore didn't have me.' He turned the page, and watched his father zoom through a photograph on a broom, hair plastered to his head and an irrepressible grin on his face. 'He put me with my aunt and uncle,' Harry said, truthfully enough. 'They're Muggles.'

'Muggles?' Ron looked thoroughly appalled. 'But you're Harry Potter! I mean, nothing against Muggles, but that's- that's-'

'Yeah,' Harry agreed.

'Now I believe you when you say you didn't even know you were a wizard.' Ron slumped back on their bench, shaking his head. 'Well... if you like, you can stick with me. I mean, you'll be Gryffindor for sure, but maybe we can meet up sometimes after classes and I could tell you things about being a wizard. I bet there's lots that's different. And you could tell me all about Muggles. There's a class about Muggles, you know. We could take that and ace it together.'

It was the kind of speech Harry had made to many a younger boy at Crowhill when they first came to the home. But no-one had ever made it for Harry, and a tentative warmth of gratitude filled him. He smiled at Ron, and Ron smiled back, a crooked smile that slowly took over both sides of his mouth.

'Can't wait,' Harry said sincerely.

* * *

There was no Sorting Troll. The Sorting Hat was a bit of a let-down, after that. That it was a singing, talking hat was interesting enough, but Harry was busy staring around at everything in awe. A girl behind him who was named Hermione Granger told someone that the ceiling was enchanted to look like the sky outside, which seemed like a waste of a perfectly functional ceiling, but it was very lovely. And the Great Hall was easily the size of Crowhill's entire, well, it was quite a bit larger than Crowhill's mess, at least, and there were never more than sixty boys at Crowhill, but there were hundreds of students here. All the older years were already at tables, under banners for Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin there along the far wall. Just like at Crowhill, there was a head table for the teachers, but they looked much more intimidating than Crowhill's staff, all clad in dark-coloured robes and pointy wizarding hats, well, excepting Headmaster Dumbledore. Harry had seen his face on one of Ron's chocolate frog cards, so he knew Dumbledore right off, and contemplated him as the first years queued for the Hat. Dumbledore was the only one in a light colour, an eye-popping sherbert orange. He had a long white beard and was currently twisting it thoughtfully about the tip of his gnarly wand. And he watched Harry every bit as much as Harry was watching him.

'Hey!'

Harry started. A blonde boy with a wickedly sharp widow's peak gave Harry a poke. 'You're Harry Potter, aren't you?'

'What? Oh, yes.' Harry put out a hand. 'Hullo.'

The other boy stared at his hand. 'They're calling your name.'

'Oh. Oh!' Harry about-faced. The stern lady called Professor McGonagall was standing up at the front holding the hat, and whoever had been on the stool had been Sorted and gone already.

'Potter, Harry,' McGonagall called again, in a silence so deep a pin could have dropped like thunder.

Ron gave him a shove, this time. Harry jumped into motion. It seemed to take forever to cross the Great Hall, as if it got larger for every step he took. His hands were sweating again. He tripped on the first step up the dais, and the stool was so high he had to climb one of the rungs and his feet didn't touch the ground. He wasn't used to his wizarding robes, and he got twisted up trying to sit on the stool, and in the middle of sorting himself out McGonagall dropped the Hat over his head and it fell right over his glasses.

And a voice said, _'Ah, Mr Potter. I've been looking forward to meeting you.'_

'Oh,' Harry said. 'Um, hello, then.'

' _Hello indeed. Yes, I've been looking forward to you. You've been on many a brain these past few years. And, of course, I Sorted both your parents.'_

Harry seized on that. 'What were they like?'

 _'Oh, no trouble Sorting those two, no indeed. Lily Evans, bright enough for Ravenclaw, loyal enough for Hufflepuff, but she had a thirst to prove herself- not unlike you, I see. James Potter, oh, there was no question. Bravery of the sort that could grow into courage, and did, from what I heard after. You have much of them in you, but none of their influence. I suppose it's pointless to wonder what might have been, eh?'_

'Not pointless,' Harry said quietly.

 _'No. No, forgive me. You are quite correct, young man.'_ The Hat was silent for a moment, and Harry peeked beneath the drooping brim. The entire Hall was staring at him. Harry flushed and dropped the Hat back in place. No-one else had taken this long, he thought. And the Hat hadn't even got around to-

' _Well, we should do, I suppose. They'll be on tenterhooks. Let's see, let's see... talent, not a bad mind. Temper. You try not to let that out, but it's there, isn't it. No ambition? You live for the day in front of you, I see. That's a kind of fear, fear that might become crippling, if you aren't challenged to reach for more. A solitary nature, that might become bitter loneliness if you aren't placed where you can grow. Difficult, very difficult.'_ The Hat hummed lowly. _'You would do well in Slytherin.'_

Ron had acted like Slytherin was the worst word in the English language. And Voldemort had been Slytherin, hadn't he? But also, Professor Lupin had said, his mum's best friend, whoever that had been. 'I don't know,' Harry said. 'But both my parents were Gryffindors.'

 _'I judge the person, not the parentage, Mr Potter. Slytherin would give you the family you crave. The path to greatness. Gryffindors are oftener called to troubled lives, but find the trouble worthwhile.'_

'I don't know,' Harry said again. His throat was very dry, and he scrubbed his palms along his trouser legs. 'I want-'

 _'Yes? You can tell me, Mr Potter. I won't share a word of what we say here.'_

'I want-' Harry heaved a deep breath. 'Not Slytherin.'

 _'Are you sure?'_

'No,' Harry admitted. 'But I have to choose, don't I.'

 _'So must we all, Mr Potter. Very well, then- better be GRYFFINDOR!'_

Harry heard the Hat shout the last word to the whole Hall. And the sense of presence in the Hat had gone, but just in case Harry whispered, 'Good-bye,' as he took it off. Professor McGonagall took the Hat from him, and gave him a little nudge off the stool. She smiled at him, softening her stern face just a bit, and Harry jumped down the steps to the floor. The entire long table of Gryffindor students were applauding wildly, louder than they had for any of the other first years Sorted to their House, and to Harry's surprise nearly all the school was clapping for him, even most of the Slytherins. His face was very hot and red as he hurried to his table, aiming for a gap in seating near the middle. The ginger twins were there and they greeted Harry with whoops and vigorous handshakes, and the older boy with the badge who had chided them introduced himself now as their brother, Percy Weasley, and he clapped Harry on the shoulder, and the ghost who hovered by their table wafted over to pat Harry on the head, making him feel like he'd just plunged into that huge lake outside, cold and shivering. At least it soothed the heat in his cheeks. He felt almost normal by the time he noticed that all the teachers at the head table were watching him, from the big groundskeeper Hagrid who'd had them over on the boats down to the dark-haired man at the other end of the table who glared as if Harry had just kicked his puppy. Harry rubbed at his scar as it ached, suddenly, but a moment later he forgot all about it. There in the middle of them, in a chair like a throne, was Headmaster Dumbledore. The Headmaster lifted his glass and tipped it toward Harry in a salute.

The rest of the Sorting went by in a blur. Harry was too distracted even to look about, and only snapped back to himself when Ron's name was called because his brothers all went keen. The twins beat the table in a drumroll, Percy was chewing viciously at a thumbnail. Ron was trembling and green as he climbed the steps and sat on the stool- Ron was tall enough that his feet touched the floor- and the Hat barely touched his head before it shouted 'GRYFFINDOR!' Harry got his chance to applaud, and Ron came running for him, collapsing into the chair beside Harry with a grin so wide his eyes were squidged up.

The Sorting was finished shortly thereafter, and Harry barely minded the speeches the staff gave, though he noticed Percy and the girl Hermione Granger hung on every word, specially the list of rules read out by Argus Filch the castle caretaker. But Harry listened very keenly when Dumbledore rose, smoothing his long silver beard over his chest and gazing out across the Hall with a benevolent smile.

'Welcome,' he said, and his voice boomed out quietly, somehow, in a way Harry had never heard anyone do before. 'Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts. Before we begin our banquet, I should like to say a few words, and they are these. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! And, of course, Tweak.' He paused, and then added cheerfully, 'Thank you.' And he sat back down.

Harry's jaw hung open. Everyone was clapping for that, as if it weren't completely barking. He'd thought, well, he'd thought from the way Professor Lupin talked about the wizard that he was rather more dangerous and canny, like a general or something. 'Is he- is he a bit mad?' Harry dared to ask.

Percy Weasley was one of those who'd clapped as if Dumbledore's 'speech' was utterly brilliant. 'He's a genius, Harry, the most powerful wizard alive. A bit mad, though, yes. Potatoes?'

Harry had so much to think about by the time the Prefects- older students who took charge of the younger ones, and Harry wasn't a bit surprised to find Percy was one- led them through the castle to their dormitories. He had his own bed, which was so delightful he didn't mind that he was adding three extra roommates from what he'd had at Crowhill. He was with Ron, and boys named Seamus, who said he was a half-and-half Muggle and Wizard, and Neville, who was something called a Pureblood, like Ron, and Dean, who had grown up thinking he was a Muggle like Harry had. That was as much as Harry stayed awake for, anyway, falling asleep atop his sheets without even removing his shoes.

He came to himself, though, in the middle of the night, waking sweaty and with an acrid taste in his mouth, the fleeting shivers of a nightmare making scary shadows out of the unfamiliar walls. Harry snagged the curtain of his bed back, and peered at the sleeping faces of his new Housemates. Ron snored just like Gaz. Harry relaxed a little at that. Maybe the nightmare would go away, now he knew the truth about it. The green light had been Voldemort, and the scream was his mother's, but he knew now what it really meant. And maybe now that he was here, in Hogwarts where they'd been so happy like in Lupin's photographs, he could replace that lonely memory of his parents with something better.

There was a bit of pokey paper in his pocket. Harry fetched it out. It was the article Lupin had given him, about Sirius Black the dark wizard. Harry smoothed out the crumples.

He put the article in the drawer of his bedside table and shut it away. He pulled the thick velveteen duvet up to his chin. His last thought, falling back asleep, was that he was glad it was Gryffindor, after all.


	4. Harry Hunting

_In Which New Beginnings Look Very Much Like Old Middles._

 _Dear Professor Lupin,_ Harry's letter began. He wrote carefully, if not gracefully, with the quill. Seamus Finnegan, who was half-blood like Harry, had lent him a primer on calligraphy, and they were practising together- well, not practising as such, but Harry did glance through it and made an effort to at least hold the long feather pen properly, and had learnt how not to scratch holes in his parchment or leave big splashes of ink everywhere. He was still rubbish at lines, even with the aid of a straight edge. His fist on the page hid the tick marks the primer advised him to make in his margins, and as there were no pencils in the Wizarding World, Harry couldn't draw a continuous line and erase it after. But he wasn't thinking so much about that, at the moment. He secured the tip of his tongue between his teeth and concentrated on legible words.

 _I have had my first week at Hogwarts and I am doing well I think the profesors here gave me a good report for my first classes which I have inclosed for you to see._ The report was meant to be mailed- owled, as was- home to parents, but Harry hadn't any parents to receive it, sigh proudly, and hang his marks somewhere public where visitors would be invited to remark on it. Harry, in fact, would not have imagined that was a thing that happened at all, except that Draco Malfoy had raised a big fuss over the big fuss his parents would be raising, and no-one had seemed to disagree with his depiction of said events. Even Neville, whose first report was full of phrases like 'Expect he'll improve once his nerves settle, hopefully' seemed to expect some response from his Gran. Ron said his mum was sure to send sweets, and had already offered to share with Harry if he didn't get any.

Of course, Ron had said that because he imagined Harry's Muggle relatives wouldn't know how to use owl post, not because Harry's Muggle relatives would be appalled to receive a progress report for Harry's first week of magical schooling. Harry had declined to enlighten Ron otherwise.

 _It has been a very intresting first week and I have learnt lots of new things._ Harry thought it best to open with that; Lupin was the sort to care about learning first and fun second. _But the most important thing for you to know is that I was sorted into Gryffindor House and am very happy_

Harry hesitated. If Professor Lupin had been a Hufflepuff, maybe he wouldn't like Harry to brag about Gryffindor. But, thinking about it again, he thought Lupin would just like to know that Harry was pleased with his placement, no matter what, so he affixed an end stop to that sentence and went on.

 _I have a friend his name is Ron Weasley and Ron has lots of brothers and a sister who isn't here yet, their names are Fred George Percy Charlie Bill and the girl is Ginny. Or well they call her Ginny Ron says, only her name is really Ginerla or something funny. I have noticed that Wizards seem to have funny names sometimes. Ron is_

Harry paused again, and a fat drop of ink fell from his quill. He smeared it away before it could soak into the parchment. He wanted to say that Ron was fun, because he was, though Harry rather thought Professor Lupin would prefer to hear that Ron was studious, which Ron was not, or at the least bothered about his schoolwork, which Ron was not. In fact Ron had been late on his first assignment in Charms and short two inches in their essay for Potions, and shrugged off the teachers' warnings with the familiarity of long practise. Harry wrote, _Ron makes funny faces and is really funny. He tells me what's normal and what's not and he always warns me when the older students are taking the mickey, I think his brothers do that a lot with him excepting Percy who is always after him to do_ extra, Harry thought resignedly, but did not write, _classwork first and exploring or chess or whatever later. Oh and I have met Hagrid who is the grondskeeper and he is a giant I think but he is very nice and rememberes my parents and Professor Lupin did you know he took me on his flying motorbike when I was a baby? When I was little I was so sure motorbikes could fly but everyone said it was my overactive imaganation but I was right all along, they just didn't know it because they are Muggles. Lots of people at Hogwarts say nice things about my parents and Professor Mick_ Harry had no idea how to spell her name, having not yet seen it written down, and tried sounding it out. _Gonical who teaches Trans_ Harry grabbed for his textbook to be sure of the spelling of this, at least- _figuration and she is very nice too she took me to see a trophy my dad won for Quiditch playing when he was a student at Hogwarts and Ron says I should take a picture of the trophy to add it to your album which thanks for that, I have enjoyed having it very much._

The lines of his letter had started a rather dramatic rightward slant. He was off by a whole tick mark. Harry sighed.

 _I think my report says that I already had a detention but I don't think it was my fault. I don't know if you will beleve me but there is a Professor here who_

Harry hesitated over that. If he wrote that he thought a Professor was being mean for no reason, Lupin wasn't likely to be very supportive. Of course there had been bad instructors at Crowhill, like Mr Thompkins who refused categorically to give anyone full marks no matter how smart they were and who was mean besides, but not the Head or any of the other teachers had ever stopped Mr Thompkins, either. And no-one had stopped Professor Snape, either, not even Professor McGonagall. Harry wanted to explain how he'd been disappointed that not all Wizards were wonderful, but that was silly, and anyway he'd known about Voldemort and the bad Wizards and he didn't very much like a lot of the Slytherins, who seemed to think that Houses were good enough reasons to be rude to people. Well, so did the Ravenclaws, who had their noses in the air about everyone but them being too stupid for words, but if Harry admitted to that he'd have to admit that Gryffindors weren't above it, either. In Harry's experience, people who went on about how much better they were than other people were usually not nearly as clever, brave, or noble as they said they were. At Crowhill you could get demerits for rudeness- Mr Thompkins liked to give those out, and so did Professor Lupin, who was very good at making you think about how you'd feel if someone had done that to you. Harry thought Professor Lupin's tactics would get a lot of use at Hogwarts.

 _who didn't like my dad much I think_ , he wrote, and sighed again from all the way down in his toes.

* * *

The first week was everything Harry could have dreamed it to be, except about a dozen times harder than he'd have liked.

Some things were just like Crowhill. They had a bell, though it didn't come over the public address system but rather magically rang everywhere at once. The bell rang on the hour and students were expected to be up and at breakfast by half seven. Their class schedules were handed out on the first day- to Ron's disappointment, first years didn't get to choose their curriculum- but they had one free period every day, although for the first week those periods weren't so much free as scheduled for things other than class. Their House Prefects divided them up the first day for tours, and the second day the Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and anyone raised Wizarding but who had an interest in the subject sat for a lecture on Integration led by Professor Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher. Hermione Granger, one of the Gryffindor first years, had so many questions that Professor Burbage in her excitement landed them with more work, forming a study group to meet weekly. Not even the new Ravenclaws looked thrilled about that. Harry saw the point in it, but Ron went on one of his rants about it. He didn't see why Harry needed more help than what Ron was already giving him; Percy lectured Ron for his attitude straight through their third free period, a lunchtime fete theoretically meant for them to get to know other members of their House, sign up for clubs, and meet the teaching staff. Their fourth and fifth day periods, Harry learnt at last, were set aside for the teachers to use to meet with them individually, and to test them.

'Test?' Harry asked tentatively, when Professor McGonagall informed him and the four other first years who had been summoned together in the Transfiguration classroom.

The stern old witch peered down at him over the golden rims of her spectacles. She had a tartan witch's hat, today, with a sprig of fir and a pinecone sticking out the brim like decorations on a fascinator, but it hardly lessened the weight of her stare. 'No, you needn't tense up, Mr Potter,' she replied, and only then did her gaze soften, just a little. She encompassed the first years seated in the row just before her desk with a gesture, and Terry Boot stopped squirming in his chair. 'All new students are assessed for a particular affinity within their first week. I have selected you five because you have shown a particular talent in your first class, because you have a wand which itself has a particular affinity for Transfiguration, or because your parents had a gift for my subject.'

Harry put up his hand again. Not all the teachers made you do it, but Harry had learnt from watching Hermione that it was more positively received if you waited for their attention. In fact, Hermione had her hand in the air now, bouncing slightly at her desk. McGonagall glanced between them, and nodded to Hermione first. She flushed with pleasure.

'Professor,' she said, and drew a big breath, which Harry had learnt presaged either a question of considerable length or a question of considerable daring. 'How are Muggle-borns' parents assessed?'

'They obviously would not be, Miss Granger,' McGonagall replied, though patiently. 'No one factor outweighs another, and I will eventually assess each new student, not merely those who displayed an immediate suitability. Mr Potter?'

'Oh.' Harry sat a little straighter under her attention. 'Ma'am. I only wondered, because the Sorting Hat doesn't judge the parentage?'

McGonagall had been tapping one finger against the length of her wand. She stopped abruptly. 'And how do you know that, Mr Potter?'

Harry had already figured out that students didn't generally engage in lengthy conversations with the Sorting Hat, if it talked to them at all- it hadn't talked to Ron, at least. But Harry couldn't very well claim he'd heard it elsewhere, since he'd been raised by Muggles.

'Because... then... everyone would only ever be in the Houses their parents were in, and the Muggle-borns wouldn't go into any House at all,' he said.

One steel-grey eyebrow arched. 'Very good,' McGonagall said. 'A point to Gryffindor for your very logical reasoning.' Hermione flashed Harry a look that mixed jealousy with pleasure for their House's gain. Justin Something-Something rolled his eyes. 'You are correct that the Sorting Hat does not determine your placement solely based on parentage, but we aren't discussing Sorting at the moment. Your magical affinity can be and often is inherited through the family line. For example, Mr Potter, your father was a natural at Transfiguration, and pursued the craft through his NEWTs and might well have gone on to-' She cut herself off. 'And, Miss Granger, Mr Finch-Fletchley, both you transformed your matchsticks within the first three tries, usually an indicator of the particular direction your abilities will grow. You may be tested in other courses, of course, and indeed your career here at Hogwarts may take any path to which you devote yourself in study and effort, but I state for the record I am well pleased to see a large crop of you here today. Now, you will direct your attention to the objects on my desk. In order of my left to my right you will attempt to Transfigure each with the incantation I have written on the board.'

Harry only managed to wobble the goblet on its base, and to turn a grapefruit into a yellow shoe. Hermione looked devastated when she failed to turn a shirt into a blanket, moaning under her breath that it ought to have worked, being within the same classification of object. Justin Finch-Fletchley was the only one who got all six correct, and Susan Bones didn't get any at all, but McGonagall praised each of them the same, awarded each of them a point for trying, and sent them off without discussing their results, which had Hermione moaning to herself all over again.

After Harry understood the purpose of the tests, he approached the rest of them with interest. Professor Flitwick, who was shorter even than the first years and whose cheerful demeanor never wavered, shared with him that his mother had displayed an immediate affinity for Charms and could have been a Master, had she- Flitwick did what a lot of people seemed to do around Harry, failing to finish that sentence. Wizards, Harry thought, were awfully sensitive about saying things aloud, like names and bad news. Harry did much better at Flitwick's test, performing three charms, reading an aura accurately, and levitating a feather within the first try or two, better than any of the other three students who participated in his round. In the Herbology test he got a plant to croon a lullaby and a strand of ivy to curl lovingly about his wrist, though it left a little rash in its wake, and learnt that his father had once broken into the greenhouse for a prank and been sprayed in the face with Danderdillion Puffs and sneezed the entire Hallelujah Chorus. In Defence Against the Dark Arts, Harry found he could feel where a spell was in the air and dodge it- not that different from dodging at Crowhill, where balls, spitwads, and other projectiles were common- and could end a jinx with a flick of his wand and a firm _Finite Incantatem,_ the only one to successfully do so. Ron was in that test with him, and couldn't free himself of a Jelly-Legs Jinx until Professor Quirrell stuttered it to and end for him. Ron went so red his freckles disappeared, and stomped away from the Defence classroom without waiting for Harry.

'Well d-d-done, Potter,' Quirrell congratulated him. 'B-b-bit of a natural.'

Harry nodded impatiently, and waited for the next part, sure a story about his parents would follow. He wasn't disappointed. Though Quirrell was one of the younger staff members, and wouldn't have been teaching when his parents were Harry's age, he said, 'Followed your parents' careers in the Aurors, b-b-big fan.'

His parents had been Aurors. Harry didn't know yet what an Auror was, but he floated high on that straight through to his next class.

Potions was a lab practical, and as such was held for a long period rather than multiple short ones throughout the week. Like many of their courses, two Houses of first years sat it together. Harry, arriving just before the bell, stared at the black backs of school robes searching for Ron's bright red hair, but found him at a table already fully occupied with Seamus and Neville to either side of him. Harry was disappointed to see that no-one he knew had kept an open seat, except for Hermione Granger, who had developed a reputation and had an entire table to herself and her massive rucksack and several books besides. Well, Harry supposed he could do worse than sit by someone who had probably already done all seven years' worth of reading. That, and she sat in the first row, which meant Harry would have a clear view of the board. Ron liked to sit in back, upping his chances of benign neglect from the teachers, but Harry couldn't see well from any distance, and he was already reluctantly working up toward begging Ron for a change.

A hand snagged his sleeve. Harry halted beside a table on the left side of the class, realising as he did that the Slytherins had all separated themselves into a big block. Draco Malfoy was at this table, his two big goons- Harry supposed it was hard to be friends with lumps as lumpy as Crabbe and Goyle- seated at the table behind him instead of beside. It was the girl next to him who'd caught Harry's attention. She was nearly as thickset as Malfoy's friends, her arms bulging even in the billowy sleeves of her robe, but she smiled at him, so Harry smiled back politely.

'You can sit with us, Potter,' she said.

'Oh.' Harry glanced to his right. The Gryffindors were all staring, several open-mouthed. Well, really. But Hermione had her head down and seemed to be organising several notebooks and three pots of varicoloured ink and had left only a sliver of space on the table. And the only other open seat was just being taken by two girls from Gryffindor. 'Right, thanks,' Harry said, and slid onto the stool at the aisle. He shook hands with the girl, and said, 'I'm Harry.'

She laughed once, incredulously. 'I know,' she retorted. Her thin lips screwed to the side. 'I'm Millicent. Millie.'

'Hi.' Harry nodded to Draco. They were already acquainted from Herbology and History of Magic, which was where Harry had discovered that many people had formed firm opinions of what Harry would be like. Draco Malfoy was one of those, and he seemed to be constantly evaluating and re-evaluating Harry, always slightly puzzled by what he found. Malfoy might not believe Harry had been in America with Batman, but he did seem to think Harry had been somewhere special or got special treatment or been learning special spells the rest of the students weren't allowed to, and had engendered a glowering resentment of it. Harry had heard him snickering when Harry didn't know the answers to questions, but when he wasn't showing off for his friends he was all right. That was how most of the older boys at Crowhill had acted toward Harry, so he didn't much mind it.

The slam of the door startled everyone. One of the Gryffindor girls, Lavender Brown, shrieked a little, and was shushed by her tablemates. A shadow stalked up the side of the classroom, turned up the row precisely halfway, and then walked straight-backed to the large blackboard at the head of the room. The shadow whirled about with a swirl of midnight robes flaring wide about him, black hair swinging, and Professor Snape stood before them, arms crossed high on his chest, white fingers gripping a long ebony wand angled just so along the crook of his elbow.

'There will be _no_ ,' Snape said, and his voice was so low that half the class leant in to hear, and so dark that half the class leant away to escape, 'foolish wand waving in this class. No doubt- _no_ doubt- you have been allowed to run wild in your other courses, swishing-' His wand cut the air so sharply Lavender gasped. 'Flicking.' A spark flew from the tip of Snape's wand. 'Flinging about you with no finesse or craft. Not in this class. Potions is an art requiring concentration, deliberation, and application. As you are eleven-' His lip curled a little. 'The first year, if not years, plural, will be wasted on you. I will seek to instill in you the basics of theory, a grasp of both the dangers and the delights to found in this unique field of study. You will learn if you are capable. If you are not, it will be no fault of mine.

'Potions-' He turned, his wand extended in a rigid point, and spiderly writing flew across the blackboard. Unlike Harry, he made perfectly level lines. 'Is required for nearly every career you may aspire to in the Wizarding World. Healers must craft many of their own remedies. Curse-breakers brew acids to eat away ancient hexes. Investigators enforce Ministry regulations of the darkest of poisons, the most dangerous components. Obliviators mediate the effects of multiple memory removals with soothing tinctures. Aurors make and use potions in the field to capture the darkest of dark wizards. Wand makers and metal charmers preserve their wares in patinas which enhance the durability and quality of spells. The dishwasher at The Leaky Cauldron must measure washing-up fluid proportionate to his task.' Snape faced them again, his head craning around so precisely Harry thought his neck must have clicked. 'And for those of you more concerned with attaining greatness, consider the higher rewards. With a cauldron and a stirring rod you can bottle fame. Brew glory. Perhaps even alchemise immortality. You can learn that here, if you are willing to drive yourself.'

Harry could not stop his eyes widening as he looked up. He had written quickly, so quickly he'd smeared his page, trying to keep up with the sonorous voice that had risen on a tide of excitement and crested on a throbbing whisper. Aurors captured dark wizards. His parents had been Aurors. If they had been good at Potions, Harry wanted nothing more.

He looked up, eager, and came eye to eye with Professor Snape, who stood before his table, directly in front of Harry. Harry swallowed.

'Mr Potter,' Snape said, so quietly the words fell dead between them. Harry felt Millie shiver. 'Our resident celebrity.'

Harry didn't know what to say to that. If he agreed, he was puffed up. If he denied it, he was lying. Everyone was looking at them. At him. His shoulders wanted to hunch. He tried not to let them.

'Mr Potter,' Snape said. 'Tell me. Where would I find a bezoar?'

'I don't-' Harry coughed. His throat was terribly dry. 'A bee- bee-shor?' He hadn't known how to say that word. Snape made it sound beautiful and exotic. 'It's, er, it's in the stomach of a goat.' That had been in the textbook. The illustration had been particularly gory, with instructions for cutting open the goat to get at it.

'Ah, we have ourselves an expert. Tell me, Mr Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?'

He couldn't remember any of that long glossary of potions components from the book. He mightn't know even if Snape wasn't trying to trip him up, like Mr Thompkins did in Religion class sometimes, though Mr Thompkins had never been half this intimidating. Harry didn't think he could look away from Snape's black eyes if he died on the spot. 'I don't know, sir.'

Malfoy cleared his throat. 'Professor Snape, they're the same thing. Monkshood is another name for-'

'I didn't ask you, Mr Malfoy.' Snape never even looked at him, though Malfoy shrank back with red cheeks. 'What would you get if you added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?'

Hermione's hand was in the air. Of course. She was almost straining off her stool, vibrating with urgency. Snape kept his back to her.

'I don't know,' Harry said.

'Pity,' Snape said, very very softly. 'Clearly fame isn't everything.'

'Well I'm not famous for Potions,' Harry muttered.

He knew, he absolutely knew, that he'd just walked into a trap. Snape's black eyes gleamed with triumph and he didn't even hide his malicious grin. 'Six points, Potter, for cheeking a professor.'

Harry had earned exactly that many over the course of the week. He doubted that was an accident. Harry locked his tongue flat against the roof of his mouth and kept his face absolutely still. Bullies walked away if you didn't give them the reaction they wanted.

Sure enough, Snape sniffed in contempt and turned. 'Wands on desks where I can see them. You will touch nothing today but your textbooks, which you should already have out and open, Mr Weasley, not crumpled carelessly on the floor beneath those boats you call feet. Longbottom, no-one told you to gape like a cow. Close your mouth. Wands, I said, Finnega-' He stopped dead, and his eyes were rivetted to the wand Harry had just put on the edge of his table. 'Potter!'

Harry tensed. 'Sir?'

'That wand is not yours.'

Harry grabbed it back just before Snape could snatch it up. 'It's mine, Professor.'

'It is _not yours_ , you vile little liar. Where did you get this? Tell me where you stole it from!'

This was an entirely different thing than Snape trying to humiliate him a minute ago. Harry let go because Snape was so livid Harry thought Snape'd strike him if he didn't; there was spittle in the corners of Snape's mouth and he had such a hard grip on the other end of Harry's wand that he stumbled back a step when Harry released it. Snape rocked back to the table and leant over it, thrusting his seething face into Harry's. 'Tell me the truth,' Snape hissed, enunciating every syllable like a lightning strike.

'It's mine,' Harry told him flatly.

'Detention,' Snape hammered back at him, and gained thin control of himself on the next breath. 'For today's lesson you will sit facing the corner. I won't have you cheating off hardworking Slytherins to achieve whatever paltry marks you manage in your excruciating years here. There will be no coasting on a name and a scar in my class, boy, not here.' He stood to his full height, stroking a finger up and down the line of Harry's wand. He watched- everyone in the class watched- as Harry gathered his bag and his notebook and quill and ink and slid down from his stool. There were no desks in any of the corners, but by the time Harry had trudged his way to the back, Snape spoke a word of magic, and one slid scraping across the stone floor to stop right in front of him. Harry sat on it and swivelled to face the wall. The stool wobbled on one leg shorter than the others, and he couldn't balance his ink and his notes and textbook and write all at the same time, and the corner was dripping with musty-smelling moisture that made his eyes sting. Oh. That wasn't the fault of an allergen. He was dangerously close to tears. He bit his lip savagely, willing the urge to pass. He would die before he gave Snape the satisfaction of tears.

'On the subject of asphodel,' Snape said, somewhere behind him. 'For your first lesson, you and your tablemates will dissect and draw a flower, and draft a list of all methods by which those parts can be used in potions. I hope you work well together. These will be your laboratory partners for the year.'

He meant Harry to face the corner alone all year? And Hermione Granger, for that matter. Harry allowed himself to feel angry on her behalf. And a little hurt. It wasn't fair to make her work alone, just because no-one else had wanted to sit with her. It wasn't fair-

Well. Lots of things weren't fair. If this was the worst thing about Hogwarts, Harry could live with unfair.

It was as well he had the double period to practise that mantra. When the bell rang, Harry carried his scroll to Snape's desk in front. His drawing wasn't very good, since he'd had to do both the dissecting and the drawing on his lap, but he'd tried to write as many things about the components as he could find in the book to make up for it. Snape, however, barely glanced at his paper, tossing it aside with a grunt of 'Barely adequate, Potter,' and a dismissive snap of his fingers. 'Return tonight for your detention, and plan for the entire weekend, as well.'

Harry repeated it to himself. He could live with unfair. 'Yes, sir. Can I have my wand back?'

'Absolutely not.' Snape had it out in prominent place on his desk. He touched it with a fingertip now, rolling it just slightly back and forth. 'You have one final opportunity to redeem your despicable lies. How did you get this wand?'

'It's mine,' Harry said shortly, stubbornly, and scathingly. Obviously it was his, or he wouldn't have been able to use it.

'You are an arrogant creature,' Snape breathed. 'Are those the most familiar words of your paltry vocabulary? How like your father. Spoilt, spoilt and rotten. Not in my class, _Potter_.'

'Then in my other classes, sir. I need my wand for Transfiguration.'

'You should have thought of that.' Snape sat back regally in his chair, Harry's wand balanced delicately between his hands. 'Hurry, or you'll be late. You shouldn't strain what good will the other professors will have for you, at least until they begin to see your true colours.'

Harry only just restrained himself whilst the Potions classroom door was swinging shut. The moment the latch clicked, however, he was exploding. Rough stone scraped at his palms as he beat them against the wall, and a furious impact to his foot as he kicked resulted in a desperate twang of pain. He didn't care. He hit the wall again, so hard the sides of his fists went numb, and then he put his head to the cool stone and forced the tears back, forced them back, forced them back. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't.

'Harry?' It was Ron. He put a tentative hand on Harry's shoulder. 'It's okay.'

'He wouldn't give it back.' Harry could barely speak around the strangling ache. 'It's my mum's wand. It's my mum's and now it's mine and it's all I have-'

'I'm so sorry.' It was Hermione Granger. Her voice was unusually small, maybe a little afraid. Well, he was acting a proper prat. Like a spoilt child who'd had his toys taken away. Harry fumbled off his glasses and swiped hard at his eyes with his sleeve. His head was pounding, or at least his scar, the way it did when he got really upset. 'That was so cruel,' Hermione said in that tiny voice, but just hearing it made it better- the smallest little bit, anyway, and Harry could breathe again. 'I'm really sorry, Potter, he had it out for you, everyone could see that.'

'You should tell Professor McGonagall,' Ron said. 'She's our Head, she'll get it back from him. I bet she's even scarier than Snape, come to it.'

'We'll be late.' Harry wiped his face again, just to be sure, as Hermione picked up his rucksack- he hadn't even noticed dropping it. Hermione helped him put it on his shoulder, though he was fully capable. It was nice, though, and Harry forced himself to smile at her. She was nice, for a girl. Not that he had any to compare. 'It's Harry, though. Don't reckon I want anyone to call me "Potter" like that ever again.' Although, what Snape had said about him being like his father? Maybe he'd change his name to Potter so Snape would have to hear it every day for seven whole years. And he was _so glad_ the Hat hadn't made him go to Slytherin. Seven years with Snape as his Head would have driven them both nutter.

'Mr Potter, where's your wand?' McGonagall asked him, as she broke the class into sets to practise Transfiguring matchsticks into lit flames.

Harry's sour mood hadn't passed, and his jagged shrug earned him a sharp look. Ron rescued him. 'It was Professor Snape, Professor, everyone saw.'

McGonagall's eyebrows began their march up her lined forehead. 'Professor Snape what, Mr Weasley?'

Hermione had sat behind Harry and Ron, since there wasn't room for three at their desks, though Neville looked a little hemmed in by her usual array of materials. Her hand had barely touched sky, though, before she jumped in, for once not waiting to be called on. 'Professor Snape took Harry's wand, Ma'am.'

'Why on earth-?' McGonagall frowned down at Harry, but the frown didn't appear to be for him. She sighed, from way down deep the way Lupin did sometimes. 'Well, it's no use dealing with it just now. Stay after class, Potter, and we'll go together. You may share with Longbottom. He has the incantation down, and you have finer motor control with the wand. Help each other. Miss Granger, demonstrate for me- yes, very nicely done. Mr Weasley? Oh, my. Well- keep working.' She inclined her head to them, and moved on to the row after them.

It was as well for Harry he was sharing with Neville, since his concentration was shot. Neville's wand was horrid hostile, too, to both of them, and Harry got an ashy sludge before he got the match to transform to flame. Neville thrashed the air with the wand and got nothing at all for it, and was glum by the close of class. He thanked Harry, though, with apparent sincerity, and didn't say anything all period about Snape or Harry's wand, and Harry was grateful for it. He regretted his outburst, especially as Ron and Hermione kept sneaking him worried glances. It was just that he was sure they would want to come with him to get his wand back, and he dreaded to think what Snape would say in front of them.

In the end, he'd worried for nothing. McGonagall summarily dismissed them, and to Harry's surprise she sat at the table next to him, though she turned her chair a bit to look at him directly. She had hands like Professor Lupin's father, with thin age-spotted skin and ropey veins over her fingers. She touched his knee, and left her fingers sitting there, and Harry had to bow his head or he thought his eyes would rebel. They were stinging again.

'I wish I could tell you it won't be this way again,' she said.

'He'll always be like that?'

'You can't be removed from Potions, Mr Potter. You need-'

'Every career needs Potions.' He recalled that quite clearly. 'He asked me questions about the book. I didn't know the answers. I knew one, I guess- I did read over the summer, I swear!'

'You are not meant to arrive an expert in any subject, Potter, or what would be the good of paying us to teach you?'

Harry hadn't thought about it like that. Just to be sure, he told her, 'I'm not stupid.'

'I didn't think you were. In fact, I'm quite sure you're not,' McGonagall told him briskly. 'You tested quite well in several subjects, including Transfiguration, though you seem determined to go about it the hard way. You have plenty of willpower, that's clear, but you need to work on channelling that will through the spell. You can force pure magic to do your bidding, but it will be shoddy work, and unsafe work, for that matter, if you can't learn to hone your magic with precision. I'd like to keep you with Mr Longbottom in Transfiguration, but you should find yourself well in advance of your peers in Defence and Charms.' She seemed reluctant, then, hesitating on her next words, but out they came anyway. 'You may have realised by now that we tested you rather more thoroughly than your fellow first years.'

Harry hadn't, particularly. 'Why?'

'Curiosity, for some. Necessity.' She gazed down at Harry with much calmer eyes than Professor Snape. 'To determine the difference between your parentage, as you called it, and yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that you are already a powerful Wizard. Based on this week's tests, I think it's entirely possible for you to become a very skilled one, as well.'

His heart began to climb out of his gut. 'Really? Could I be an Auror, d'you think?'

'An Auror? Decided on a career already?'

'Well... I heard my parents were Aurors.'

'Ah.' McGonagall smiled slightly. 'Yes, and bloody fine warriors. Well. I suppose I had my dreams when I was your age. That's as good a one as I'd want for you. Work hard, Mr Potter, and you could do many things to honour their memory.' She patted his knee, and rose. 'Now, let's get your wand.'

Harry approached the dungeons with considerable loathing. It was hard to believe he'd only been there for a few hours- it felt like forever and ever. McGonagall walked very swiftly for an old lady in big heavy robes, and Harry hadn't much time to think about it before she knocked- once, and once only- at the Potions classroom door, and let herself in as if the door had better open or else. Harry followed at her heels, of half a mind to try and hide behind her, just to spare himself a glimpse of Snape's nasty face.

But Snape wasn't wearing a nasty face. In fact, he looked nearly pleasant. 'Minerva,' he greeted her politely, looking up from his desk where he sat marking parchments in red ink. 'The first week already over. My feet ache worse every year. I'll be at the lounge with the Muscle Relaxing Balm this evening, if you'd like your portion.' He glanced at Harry, hovering behind McGonagall, and went back to his marking as if Harry's presence were entirely unremarkable.

Harry understood at once, of course. Snape would make Harry out to be a blubbering crybaby who sought attention for every imagined slight. He could do anything and it would be Harry's word against his, and the calmer Snape looked the worse Harry would seem. Like an arrogant, spoilt boy, just as Snape had accused him. Harry did the only thing he could. He kept his face blank of all expression, his hands clasped behind his back so they wouldn't shake. 'Sir,' Harry said, just as politely as Snape had to McGonagall, and nothing more.

McGonagall was frowning at them. After a moment, she said, 'Wands may not be necessary tools in beginner's Potionmaking, Severus, but they are quite useful for the rest of his classes. He'll need it back.'

'Of course.' Snape opened a drawer at his knee, and removed Harry's wand. He had it wrapped in a bit of cloth, and laid it out on the desktop. 'I held it back as a precaution. But I sense no malevolent enchantments, no curses.'

'Curses?' McGonagall had been reaching for it. She stopped mid-air. 'Why on earth would you suspect such a thing?'

'Because,' Snape said. 'This is Lily Potter's wand. And as it is Lily Potter's wand, the last place it would have been was Godric's Hollow, in the possession of the Wizard who murdered her.'

Harry didn't hear much after that. His head had gone swimmy, and there was a distant roar in his ears, like a drum beating far away. Voldemort had had his mother's wand. Voldemort had killed his mum and taken his mother's wand, even if it was just for a little while, a minute or maybe not even a minute before he'd tried to kill Harry next. Snape and McGonagall were talking, and a word or two came through to Harry, 'master', and 'wards', and 'ancient magicks', and 'black', but he couldn't make himself listen. Harry was just thinking, over and over again, about the nightmare he'd had his whole life, the nightmare of the woman screaming, and the green light, and how he knew now in a way he'd never truly known before that that was his mum, and she was dead because Voldemort had killed her.

The world snapped back into motion. McGonagall said, 'Dumbledore.'

Harry took a trembling breath. He jabbed out a hand for the wand, and both the teachers reacted like he'd tried to put his hand in a live fire. But Harry was faster, and he had the wand tight in his fist, and this time he wouldn't let go unless they killed him, too.

'It's mine,' he said fiercely. 'You can't have it.'

Snape let go first. Like Harry's wrist had burnt him. There was loathing in his face, burning hatred. Harry didn't care. He gave it right back.

McGonagall let go, too, but only to shift her hold to Harry's shoulder. 'Accompany me, Mr Potter,' she said. 'And you too, Severus. I think we had best resolve this matter with haste.'

And that was how Harry found himself in the Headmaster's office for the first time. McGonagall seemed to think Harry might dash off if she let him go, and Snape stayed just behind him, never quite in his line of vision, so that Harry had to keep turning his head to keep the professor in sight, but he forgot to watch when they reached Dumbledore's office. It was guarded by a looming gargoyle (McGonagall covered his ears with her hands so he couldn't hear the password) and they rode a sort of spiralling stone escalator as if they were at an especially posh shopping mall, but the office itself was the most wondrous thing about Hogwarts yet. Harry, having grown up in a Boys' Home and having earned his share of rapped knuckles, touched with his eyes only, keeping his hands in his pockets, which at least helped him maintain a determined grip on his mother's wand. There were dozens, hundreds, of fantastical instruments so strange he couldn't even imagine what they measured, and a big telescope aimed out the window, and a grandfather clock with big brass tubes like a church organ, and lots of moving portraits which were mostly empty, except for one where all the people from the portraits seemed to have gathered around a table for dinner and card games, and there was a mirrored hutch standing open to show a stone bowl in the cabinet, swirling with a strange essence that was half light and half liquid, and there was a bird, the most beautiful bird sitting on a perch, and it crooned at Harry, and he didn't even realise he'd crossed the room til he was standing nose-to-beak with the bird. He didn't touch it- he truly didn't, didn't even remove his hands from his pockets- but the bird nuzzled up against Harry's cheek sweetly, and then bit the stem of Harry's glasses. Harry laughed, startled, and the bird hopped from its perch onto Harry's shoulder, the better to nibble at his frames.

Harry turned, and found a roomful of adults staring at him like he'd turned into a three-headed dog.

Headmaster Dumbledore recovered first. The twinkle in his faint blue eyes winked harder than ever. He said, 'I see Fawkes has taken to you, Harry. You know a phoenix is a fine judge of character.'

'Sir.' Harry straightened his specs as the bird- Fawkes- tugged them askew. 'What's a phoenix?'

'A sun bird. An immortal bird. He was born of ash, will die of flame, and be reborn again, endlessly. There's a little plate of treats there, if he would let you feed him. Ah, he will. Yes, quite a good judge of character.'

Harry couldn't help himself. He flung a look of challenge at Snape. Snape looked like he'd sucked a lemon. Fawkes nipped Harry's ear, and Harry hurried to get another cracker for him.

Dumbledore held a chair for Professor McGonagall, and seated himself behind the enormous desk. Snape didn't sit, taking up stance with his arms crossed between Harry and the door. 'Minerva and I have made a startling discovery,' Snape said.

Harry scowled. That wasn't at all what had happened, and it made it sound as if Snape hadn't grabbed his wand off him in class.

McGonagall didn't dispute it, though. 'Albus,' she said, 'Harry here carries his mother's wand.'

Dumbledore's twinkle was a full-blown shine now. 'Does he indeed?'

'This is no smiling matter,' Snape snapped. 'You know as well as anyone that the Wizard who defeats a wand's owner can become the wand's new master.'

'Can,' Dumbledore repeated, emphasising it not at all, and perforce underlining it in red and glitter besides. 'Harry has been using it without complaint or difficulty?'

'All week,' Harry said. 'And when I found it, it felt perfect.'

'Found it.' Snape came two narrow-eyed steps toward Harry, even with McGonagall's chair. 'Found it where?'

'In my vault.' Harry hesitated. If they asked him who had taken him to his vault, it would get sticky. He didn't want anyone to know about Lupin, or Crowhill, or that the Dursleys might as well never have been, for how involved they were.

Though he couldn't quite help resenting it, just a little, that Dumbledore didn't know, didn't care, and didn't question it now. 'But of course,' the Headmaster was saying, quite satisfied. 'His parents' vault. It's not unheard of for a parent to pass a wand to their magical heir. I believe we have another first year with his father's wand?'

'Mr Longbottom is having considerable trouble with his wand,' McGonagall answered. 'Parents leave wands as family artefacts all the time, but they rarely pass generation to generation without skipping.'

'Perhaps,' Dumbledore said, folding his hands before him on the desk, 'we should perform a few cautionary tests on Mr Longbottom's wand. After all, it's possible to interpret what happened to his father as defeat.'

Snape went pale at that. McGonagall put her hand to her throat. 'We may have a wand in this castle loyal to Bellatrix Lestrange?' she whispered.

'We would know,' Snape told her, but he didn't seem to believe it. 'And that would not be loyalty. It would be corruption. That wand would reek of her.'

'As Harry's wand would reek of the Wizard who conquered it,' Dumbledore concluded genially. 'If such were the case. As it does not, I believe we have proved our worry sensible, but ultimately unneeded. To be certain- Severus, you noticed nothing in your examination of Lily's wand?'

'Nothing,' Snape said, with great reluctance. He put his pointy chin in the air. 'It would be wise to perform lengthier tests, however. Send samples of the core to experts. At the very least, Potter should not be wielding it near innocents.'

'You know as well as anyone that tampering with a wand destroys its magic!' McGonagall shot to her feet, forestalling Harry's screech of protest. Fawkes made an odd sussurating sound in Harry's ear, and stroked his beak against Harry's cheek. It calmed him immensely, and he watched without worry as McGonagall and Snape began an argument with histrionics and raised voices. Dumbledore didn't listen to them at all. He was watching Harry.

It ended with a growl. 'Fine!' Snape declared, waving his hands like bats in McGonagall's face. 'Don't blame me when he's possessed by latent sorcery. He'll murder us all in our beds with that thing-'

'I think not, Severus,' Dumbledore said, only mildly reproving, but Snape shut up immediately, his jaws clenched so hard Harry could hear him grinding his teeth.

Then, 'The boy owes me a detention.'

'For?' McGonagall demanded.

'Cheek. Lying. He wouldn't tell me where he got her wand.'

'He didn't owe you an explanation!' McGonagall cried, and Harry felt a sudden burst of affection for her.

'Albus,' Snape appealed. 'What infractions occur in my domain are mine to punish, and as I see fit-'

Dumbledore posed a hand in the air. 'Peace, peace. As you see fit, Severus, which I'm sure is a place of utmost reasonableness and justification. Besides, it will give you and Harry a chance to get to know one another, and overcome any lingering unpleasantness resulting from this misunderstanding.'

Harry stared. That was insane. And silly besides. Snape looked fit to eat Harry alive, and there was no misunderstanding! Not on Harry's part, anyway. He understood Snape perfectly well. Down to the triumphant glare he cast at Harry now, gloating over his win.

'Excellent,' Dumbledore said brightly, and that was that.

* * *

 _Professor MacGoniggle gave me fifteen points though for saying Good Morning, though. Percy says she usually finds ways to make it up to you when things go bad which is what you want in a Head, I think. Did you have her as a teacher when you were here? I like her. I'm not sure I like some of the other professors or the headmaster._

Harry stared down at his letter. Slowly, carefully, he lined out the last three words. Then the whole sentence.

 _I get to learn to fly on Monday,_ he wrote instead, and filled the rest of the page with pleasant chat, well wishes, and a promise to study hard so he could be a great Auror one day.

Just like his mum and dad, and Potions be damned.


	5. Two Beautiful Wings

_In Which Boy Meets Broom._

Harry Potter was not only famous in the Wizarding World. Harry Potter was popular.

This was an alarming turn of events for Harry. No-one had actively disliked Harry at Crowhill (excepting Mr Thompkins, who actively disliked every student), but he had been one amongst many, unremarkable and for the most part unseen. He had not realised in that more innocent time how much indepdence came with anonymity. At Hogwarts, there was always someone watching where he went, to whom he talked, what food he liked to eat- he inadvertently instigated a rush on Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, with an intensive trade for all kinds of desperate favours promised in return for increasingly rare curry, marmalade, and lemon beans, Harry's favourites. A passing comment that pumpkin juice was better warmed up resulted in the presence of huge steaming cauldrons at breakfast, and his first weekend's preference for the roasted sprouts sent Hagrid begging in the nearby village of Hogsmeade for a bumper crop to feed a thousand schoolchildren suddenly quite fond the noble veg.

Messy hairstyles for boys developed into an overnight rage- McGonagall banned scissors in the Gryffindor baths- even Ron fell prey to that one, turning up one morning with a decidedly crooked cut and streaks of purple, the result of a spell the twins had tricked him into trying, he reported glumly, which took Percy days to undo. Harry's Muggle trainers seemed especially fascinating to the Purebloods. A Hufflepuff named Zacharias Smith was the first to land a pair, LA Gears with lights in the heels, far and away better than Harry's practical and scuffed off-brand shoes, but it didn't matter to anyone. Muggle everything became the must-have request, owls flocking the skies with hasty demands to parents. Anyone who got to something first had bragging rights, and soon Hogwarts was swimming in denims, plaid flannel shirts, bandanas, jelly watches, coveralls, and brightly coloured braces. Hermione Granger quite unexpectedly found herself to be a fashion icon, and even sixth and seventh year girls were seen sporting scrunchies and butterfly clips in freshly crimped hair.

The rabid attention of so many students also meant Harry could hardly go anywhere without a crowd. When he walked down to the Lake to study, it turned into an impromptu picnic for half the school, and Professors Flitwick, Sinistra, and Burbage had to give up their afternoons to chaperone. When he sat in the Gryffindor Common Room after classes, his Housemates stared so blatantly he couldn't twitch without someone whispering about it. In classes was somewhat better, since the Professors kept them busy, but anyone Harry had sat with during the first week had a sheen of borrowed celebrity, and Harry stopped sitting with anyone who bargained for a switch. Dean Thomas promised to give back the box of Sugar Quills he'd taken from a Hufflepuff who wanted to sit near Harry in Herbology, and Harry forgave him, but he couldn't stop it everywhere. Ron and Hermione and Neville were beseiged with extravagent promises.

And autographs! Everyone had something they wanted Harry to sign. He saw quickly he'd made a mistake with the first few bemused allowances- he'd thought, at first, it was silly and likely to go away, specially when people saw his awful scratches and blobs with the awkward quills, but if anything it got worse the more people heard he'd do signatures. People wanted him to sign everything from letters home to parents to copies of _The Daily Prophet_ to magazines with pictures of Harry quite clearly taken with long lenses and grainy angles from the Hogwarts Express platform to one of him on the Sorting Stool, which appeared as a full-page poster insert for purchase price of an entire galleon in _Witch Weekly_. No-one knew where that prized photo had originated, but it sent McGonagall into a tizzy, and the Headmaster made an announcement at dinner that Argus Filch was authorised to confiscate cameras. By the end of Harry's first week it was rumoured Filch was going to have a bonfire night with all the film he'd rounded up.

It was all excruciatingly embarrassing. It was also nerve wracking. No-one as yet seemed to have happened upon the truth of Harry's upbringing, but Harry didn't expect that luck to last. He timidly asked Professor McGonagall if journalists were allowed to go looking for his Muggle relatives, and she reassured him there were laws in place to protect Muggles from hearing about Wizards. She also advised him to weather the storm by ignoring it as much as possible, but that was easier said than done. Harry developed a tetchy stomach and a habit of jumping at anything vaguely like his name. A tearful midnight letter to Professor Lupin brought some comfort: Lupin replied immediately and with many promises to take care of things in a quiet way, and gentle teasing suggestions about using his newfound renown to encourage scholastic excellence at Hogwarts.

Of course, the Quidditch bit didn't help a thing.

Harry had been quite excited about learning to fly on broomback. Professor Lupin had described it at length, and been of the opinion that Harry would be a natural- in fact, he'd said, Harry had already been flying on a broom, as a baby, though Harry couldn't remember it. There were four pictures of Harry's father James flying in his album, and James seemed to be brilliant at it, swooping this way and that, performing tricks and rolls and dives over and over for Harry's fascinated study. But there were no pictures showing how a body got onto a broom and into the air, so Harry was quite as jittery as everyone else as they trooped out to the lawn on a sparkling Monday morning for their first lesson.

'I've read all about brooms, of course,' Hermione said at his left.

'Of course,' Ron echoed sarcastically, in Harry's right ear, and Harry grinned swiftly at him.

Hermione either didn't hear or was used to ignoring such remarks. 'It's not dissimilar to wand-making, that is, broom-making isn't. Brooms have all manner of magical cores just like wands do, except they're almost exclusively geared toward assisting in lift-off and flight and agility in the air. Hippogriff feathers used to be most popular, but they're rather stubborn, and brooms wouldn't always obey-'

'What's a hippogriff?' Harry asked.

'Don't you know anything, Potter?' Harry turned. That scoffing voice was vaguely familiar, more for the cutting tone than anything. It was Draco Malfoy, head of a crowd of Slytherins all descending the path together.

'No,' Harry said, quite reasonably, as he thought. 'I was raised by Muggles.'

Malfoy didn't seem to know how to respond to that. 'Oh,' he said, after a moment. Then he rounded on his two big goons. 'Quit snickering,' he snapped on them. 'Ignorance isn't the same as stupidity, more unfortunate for you.'

Millie Bulstrode claimed a spot at Harry's side by walking right at him. Her girth bumped Ron clear off his feet, and she turned, grinning, to Harry. 'Hippogriffs are a sort of horse and eagle thing. I have a book on magical creatures in my room, if you want. You could come see it.'

'I don't think I'm allowed into girls' dorms,' Harry said dubiously. Ron picked himself up, scowling, disdaining Harry's outstretched hand.

'No, dum-dum, in the Slytherin Common Room.' Draco grabbed Harry's arm and pulled at him. Harry followed because he had no choice, and Draco dragged him into the grassy courtyard where their lesson would take place. Brooms were already laid out in neat rows, and Harry felt a tingle of trepidation and exhiliration return. 'You want to get a good one, Potter. These school brooms are all old models and used up besides. Watch out for broken bits or crooked weaving- no, not that one, that one'll dump you into the dirt as soon as fly- here. You take this one.'

'That one's better,' Harry observed, bending to examine the shafts of two brooms laid side-by-side. 'This one has a big scratch.'

'If you've never flown before you won't get far today, so you should leave the best broom for someone who knows what he's doing.' Draco clearly had a candidate for that someone in mind. He took a stance over the better broom, chin jutting proudly.

'Right,' Harry said dubiously, but he supposed that was actually decent logic. With a shrug he stood over his broom, and looked around to see how the others had done. Oh, no. It had happened again. He'd just been eager to get at the brooms, but the rest of the class, doubles Slytherin and Gryffindor, had been watching him instead of just getting on with it. Except for Draco and Harry, the two Houses had squared off against each other, and Harry stood at the end of a row so no-one else could claim his other side. Ron was far down a different row, and Hermione in a different row than that even, next to Neville. She waved, and Harry waved back.

'Students!' A commanding voice quieted the chatter instantly. 'I,' said the woman who strutted through the rows to the head of the courtyard, 'am Madam Hooch, the Hogwarts Flying Instructor.'

Harry bounced a bit on the balls of his feet. She looked exactly how a Flying Instructor should look! She had yellow eyes like Professor Lupin's, and a dignified lift to her head, and she wore flying gear like a picture Harry had seen once of old RAF fighters, leather trousers and a big white scarf about her neck which would flap in the breeze and goggles perched on her hair. She had her own broom, and it was far and away better than the student brooms, and bigger besides, sized for an adult. It was all sleek cherry-coloured wood, and had silver stirrups and blue straw all perfectly groomed to a point at the tail. One day Harry would look like that! Except he wanted red and gold, Gryffindor colours, and he would zoom and roll and laugh like his father on his broom, pumping a fist in the air after a Quidditch goal-

'Basic flight,' Madam Hooch was saying, 'is a matter of will and power, not spells. However, there is a world of study beyond getting yourself hovering on a stick of wood. In the course of your first year, you will learn the spellwork which governs the creation of brooms, as well as broom maintenance, navigation, and the coordination of direction, speed, and duration of flight. Some of you will take to the air like birds, and some of you will find yourselves more suited to other forms of magical transportation, but I will make one thing clear at the outset: in this class, you are responsible not only for your performance on broom-back, but for your understanding of the magical theory. Do not neglect this, for tests and essays will be two-thirds of your final mark.'

Harry didn't have to look to know that would relieve Hermione. She had already confessed to Harry her fear that she would be a poor flyer, since she got car-sick very readily any time she tried to read and ride at the same time. Harry had pointed out that she was unlikely to be reading a book and flying a broom simultaneously, but knew nonetheless she'd be glad to have a chance to prove her book-learning over the practical exam.

'Now.' Hooch strode up and down the rows, correcting stances, getting them all stood with both feet planted firmly on the ground, wands raised parallel over their brooms. 'The most common call to a broom is the most simple across every language. Though you will eventually perform this spell wordlessly and wandlessly, you must first hone your expression of desire through your will to make the broom obey you. I wish all of you to- on my mark, Mr Zabini, wait for my mark please- flick your wand thusly over your broom and give the following command, firmly and without hesitation: Up!'

'This stuff is for babies,' Draco muttered scornfully. 'I was flying on my own before I was five.'

'Is that when you learnt to walk and chew gum?' Harry replied innocently. Draco shot him an uncertain look. He clearly suspected that was an insult, and just as clearly didn't know what gum was. Harry did not enlighten him.

'Ready?' Hooch returned to her spot in the front, and demonstrated the stance again just to be sure. Her wand lashed the air over her broom. 'On my mark, now! UP!'

Draco might not have been exaggerating about his lengthy experience. He didn't say 'Up' or even flick his wand, and the broom rose right up in a lovely zip to his waiting hand. He beamed smugly at Harry, before his mouth dropped open.

'Ouch,' Harry hissed. He had flicked his wand and said 'Up,' just as he was supposed to, but he must have done it wrong. The broom flew up from the grass at such a clip that it smacked into his palm hard enough to hurt. He switched hands to shake out numb fingers.

'Good, good, keep trying,' Madam Hooch was saying, and had started toward Hermione and Neville, who were struggling. Hermione got it just as Madam Hooch arrived, and grinned widely enough to show all her somewhat overlarge teeth. Neville, however, couldn't do it even with Hooch's help. It was that wand of his. Neville couldn't even get sparks out of it half the time, but his Gran had insisted he use it, he'd said. Harry thought of what Dumbledore had said about wands- Harry didn't understand all of it, except the obvious, which was that it wasn't Neville's fault if the wand was wonky.

'Hey,' Harry said, and left his spot, trotting across the grass with his broom to Neville's row. Madam Hooch started and stared at him every bit as much as the students, but at least recovered faster.

'Potter, back in line, if you please,' she told him.

'Yes, Madam,' Harry said. 'Just that I wanted to let Neville try my wand first, to see if that helped. Here.' He held it out, handle toward Neville.

A hush fell. Oh. Harry had done something again. He felt a hot flush starting at his neck and ears.

Neville was very wide-eyed. 'Really, Harry? _Your_ wand?'

'You let me use yours in Transfiguration,' Harry said. He waggled his hand, and Neville reached for Harry's wand. He looked to Hooch for permission, and she made a strange little noise, half a laugh and half a squeak. She cleared her throat, and whirled away from them.

'Those of you who haven't got it yet should be practising!' she hollered, but no-one moved, and anyway she'd already gone a complete three-hundred-sixty in her turnabout and was staring at Harry again.

Neville gripped Harry's wand in a chubby fist, and filled up his cheeks with air like a chipmunk. 'Right,' he said. 'Here goes.' He extended the wand over his broom, and flicked forcefully. 'Up!' he gasped.

And gasped again when the broom rose. It wobbled a bit, but it floated on up just as it was meant to into Neville's hand, and the look Neville turned on Harry was absolutely ecstatic with triumph.

'Oh, Neville!' Hermione squealed, and flung her arms about him in a quick embrace. 'Well done!'

'I did it! I did it!' Neville juggled Hermione and the broom and Harry's wand. 'Thank you, Harry, oh, thanks so much!'

'Anytime,' Harry answered, grinning back at him. He retreated to his place at the end of his row, rubbing at his collar. All the attention was making him heat over. His armpits and hands were sweaty.

'I can't believe you did that,' Draco whispered. 'Proper Wizards don't-'

'Raised by Muggles,' Harry retorted wearily. 'Anyway, it worked, so what's it important for?'

Draco let out a little bark of a laugh. 'For one thing, Weasel looks like he'll piss himself from jealousy.'

That appeared to be true. Ron had been doing all right, though, and had got his broom before Harry had gone to Neville's rescue. But he definitely looked unhappy. And he glanced away pointedly when Harry shrugged at him.

It was another fifteen minutes before everyone had managed to get their brooms, with Vincent Crabbe from Slytherin the last to get it- 'Big lump,' Draco rolled his eyes, 'he can do it when he's not thinking about it.' Only when everyone had managed to lift, or what Hooch said was levitating, their brooms, were they allowed to mount them and practise hovering. Draco had it down immediately, beginning to look bored, but Harry found it a fascinating experience. It wasn't like sitting on a swing where your feet didn't touch the ground; for one, the broom handle made for an awkward and uncomfortable seat. There were some very inappropriate cracks from the boys whenever Hooch was far enough away to risk it, and some redcheeked girls in their skirts who tried various sidesaddle approaches under Hooch's guidance. Hooch assured everyone that they were not going to find some new way to ride, after centuries of Wizards and Witches abrooming it, but nonetheless Harry thought it would take some getting used to. Then they were allowed to try a proper seat, arranging themselves in a sort of lie-down on the shafts, feet in the stirrups and learning how to direct the broom, leaning forward to dive, pulling up to rise, left or right just enough to turn without falling off. They were theoretically spaced widely enough to practise without knocking each other off, but students began to fall like dominoes as people misheard or mismanaged right versus left. A giggling Pansy Parkinson knocked Millie off her broom, and Seamus did the same thing to Dean but at speed, so they both were flung off into the grass, and soon the courtyard was ringing with laughter. Harry watched it all, grinning as widely as Hermione.

'Waste of time,' Draco complained, at least until Harry, tired of his sour mood, whipped his broom about and hooked the nose under Draco's knee, lifted, and tipped Draco right off with a splat. Draco spluttered and gaped like a fish.

'You've got dirt on your nose,' Harry told him helpfully, as Draco climbed resentfully back on his broom.

'Students!' Hooch clapped her hands. 'Two volunteers, please.' Several hands shot up, but as soon as Hooch's yellow eyes lit on Harry, he knew. This was going to be another test. 'Potter and Malfoy, walk your brooms to the front, please.'

Draco had been one with his hand in the air. He put a little extra swagger into his walk, Harry trailing behind him. Hooch had them face the class, and they went through it again, raising their brooms from the grass- Harry's still rose so hard it hurt his hand, though at least this time he was ready for it- and mounted to hover.

Then came the best thing Harry had ever done in his life.

'All right, boys,' Hooch directed them. 'You're going to fly to that marker there by the Lake, and then turn- Malfoy, you turn left, Potter, you turn right- and come back here. I want you to go fast as you can on the outbound, and slow on the in. Ready? And... go!'

It seemed like Harry's broom was as excited as he was. He felt a little kick, like something swatting him through the air, and he had to scramble to keep a good grip on the shaft. He put his head down and willed the broom forward, and it was absolutely amazing. Breathtaking! Perfection. He was only dimly aware of laughing in delight, zipping and zooming and the wind tearing at his face, and arrived at the Lake all too soon. With great effort he made himself slow down, though it tore his heart to do so. He laughed again to see that he passed Draco still headed for the Lake on his return, but dallied to let Draco catch him up. Even going slow was interesting and fun, and he dropped a shoulder and leant and went into a barrel roll with a whoop. Some of the students applauded him, and Harry came to himself with a blush. He hadn't meant to show off.

But Hooch had a strange light in her eyes when he and Draco returned in tandem. 'Excellent, boys!' she said, but she was looking at Harry in particular. 'Now I don't believe I instructed you to try any funny business, did I?'

'No, Madam,' Harry mumbled.

'Well, let's see. Back to the Lake, both of you, and this time I want you to try that roll again, you as well, Draco, and let's say three loops.'

Draco barely waited for Hooch's mark. This time he was the one who shot off, and Harry who flew hard after him. He had closed the gap, at least, by the time the water loomed near, but then Draco whirled a hard left and Harry dove away to the right, dipping immediately into his rolls. He could have kept going for another two, he thought, judging the distance back to Hooch's admittedly blurry figure, but confined himself. His reward was to be told to go back to the Lake again, as fast as they could, only this time Hooch would call out 'Brake!' at intervals and he and Draco were to stop as hard as they could without falling. Braking at speed, Harry discovered, was a complex manoeuvre, and he did nearly go tumbling nose-first off his broom, slipping several inches up the shaft, but he righted himself and did better and better at the next calls. He and Draco raced back up from the Lake, and Hooch bellowed at them to brake just before they would have gone crashing into their classmates like a ball smashing down bowling pins, and Harry yanked wickedly at the shaft of the broom til it swung up nearly vertically, slid off the back end, and landed on his rump.

'You're a bloody fool, Potter,' Draco said, dismounting elegantly, but he put out his hand for Harry, and Harry laughed all the way back to his feet.

'Language, Mr Malfoy,' Hooch warned him, but only absently. Her eyes were absolutely gleaming, and she rubbed her hands together like she was hatching a plot. 'Five points each, excellent control.'

'That,' said Harry breathlessly, 'was the best thing ever.'

'You're good,' Draco told him, a little begrudgingly, as they resumed their spots and went back to sedately hovering. 'Muggles? Really?'

'Really!'

By the end of class, everyone had made at least one flight to the Lake, even Neville, though he fell off halfway there and chose not to get back on. Ron was quite good, since he'd grown up playing Quidditch with his brothers, though he got docked a point for flying too high against Madam Hooch's orders- she wanted them all near the ground where a fall wouldn't hurt. 'Oh, but Wizards bounce,' Neville told Harry, as they watched. 'I did, anyway, when my great-uncle Algie dropped me out the window. Well, I didn't bounce when they dropped me off Blackpool Pier, but I reckon that was on account of almost drowning.'

Harry stared at him. 'That's horrible, Neville. Why would they drop you?'

'To see if I was a Squib,' Neville said, matter-of-factly.

'What's a-'

'Someone born to magic parents who doesn't have any magic,' Hermione filled him in. 'It's about as common as Wizards and Witches appearing in Muggle bloodlines.'

'Is not,' Draco said viciously. 'My father says Squibs only happen in Mudblood lines because Muggle blood ruins everything.'

Someone gasped. Pansy was whispering to Millie, who had her lip between her teeth. Neville was pale, and Ron was very red, like steam was going to start coming out his ears any second. 'Well, that's rubbish, isn't it,' Harry said, stepping closer to Hermione, whose eyes had gone very bright with temper and tears. 'My Mum was from a Muggle family.'

'And Longbottoms are Purebloods,' snarled Ron. 'As far back as Malfoys, that's for sure.'

Draco looked frustrated, his mouth turned down in a deep frown. 'It's only a fact. No need to get upset about it, Potter.'

'It's not either a fact, it's an opinion, and a nasty one,' snapped Hermione. She crossed her arms over her chest. ' _My_ father says if you're going to keep those kinds of opinions, you'd best keep them quiet inside your own head, at least in polite society.'

'No talking!' Hooch ordered them, and that was the end of that.

Or nearly. When the bell rang, summoning everyone inside for lunch, Hooch held Draco and Harry back. Harry tensed, thinking they were sure to be in trouble for all that talk about blood. He hadn't been a Wizard long, but long enough to know that some people, many of the writers of _The Daily Prophet_ included, who thought blood was important stuff, and it was one of the commoner insults even in Gryffindor. He found himself holding his breath, dragging his feet as he followed Hooch and the line of self-flying brooms back up the lawn to the shed. His detention with Snape had been plenty awful, cleaning out cauldrons from the first week of classes with baking soda and vinegar for hours on end. He didn't want another already.

But maybe Hooch hadn't actually overheard anything. She locked away the brooms as they queued themselves up on racks and settled to rest, and turned to face Harry and Draco with a clap of her hands. 'I want to talk to you boys about Quidditch,' she said smartly.

Draco's shoulders lost their tense hunch. 'Quidditch? You mean the House teams?'

'I do indeed, Mr Malfoy. Now you're both first years, so you won't make the teams, and I don't want to promise you that, but you both have the talent. I think you should sign up when the captains call for try outs. You could be second-string backups, training up for next year. I'm holding an introductory session for the Beginner's Club on Thursday.'

'Madam Hooch, I'm already plenty advanced at Quidditch,' Malfoy interrupted stuffily.

'Not for a team of older, faster, and bigger students, Mr Malfoy. There's many a player from Hogwarts who goes right on to a career in professional Quidditch on graduation, so you'd be up against the best here. A second-string player uses their first year to study the rules, learn plays and strategies, and practise drills so they're ready to advance without any adjustment. Think of it like chess, boys: I wouldn't put even a prodigy your age against an experienced champion six years older than you. Not to mention you'll have to bulk up, and join the team work-outs. Practises and games run full days, not just til you tire out, and you look a bit scrawny for that exercise, if you don't mind my saying, Potter. Now. D'you think you have the discipline for it? The resolve?' She nodded at their eager replies. 'Then I'll see you at try outs.'

Draco took off at a run, headed for Millicent and Goyle and Crabbe and the other Slytherins who'd lingered, clearly trying to eavesdrop from up the hill. Harry nearly took off after him, wanting his own moment of back-slapping congratulations, but a stronger urge pinned him in place. Hooch smiled down at him, and there was something waiting there to come out, he just knew it.

He wasn't disappointed. 'Your father would be proud,' Hooch said.

Harry's nervous flicker blossomed into a warm glow. 'He would?'

'We used to play together,' Hooch confided in him. This was the best story yet! Not just someone who had taught his parents or read news articles about them. 'Of course I was on the Ravenclaw team and three years ahead of your father, but we overlapped in Quidditch for two years. James was a bit of a daredevil on broomback, not that I encourage you to the same, but he had flair. You've seen his trophy?'

'Yes, Madam, Professor McGonagall showed me.'

'Most Valuable Player, I believe, his sixth year. He was Head Boy by his seventh and I think schoolwork and courting your mum pulled him a bit in a more serious direction, by then, but I thought for sure he'd be recruited. You should ask your relatives about that, if you haven't already. I'm fairly sure it was Puddlemere United who made him an offer, but he went on to the Aurors, didn't he. I suppose a lot of things would've been very different if he'd chosen a safer-' Abruptly, Hooch cut herself off. To Harry's surprise, two spots of pink appeared in her cheeks. 'Oh, Harry, please forgive me. That was awful of me.'

'It wasn't awful,' Harry said. 'It's true, I suppose.'

'No, it's wretched. After all you've been through, and what happened to your poor parents- they died heroes. What you've done for our world, the three of you Potters.'

'Yes, Madam.' The story seemed to be over. Madam Hooch patted him awkwardly on the arm, and hurried off. Harry watched her go.

He let himself have a moment to think about what life would be like, if his parents had, after all, chosen something safer than catching Dark Wizards. It was hard to imagine. He'd have been raised a Wizard, as Lupin had said, and he'd have had James to show him how to ride a broom by the time he was five like Draco, and a mum who could cast all kinds of charms to teach him about magic, and no Crowhill or Dursleys. He'd know them, because they'd be alive, and he just knew, in his bones, that they'd have been wonderful.

But they had been Aurors, and they had died fighting Voldemort, and that was that. Wishing wasn't the same as having.

Harry put it all away, all that sad longing feeling, and didn't let it out again.

He trudged up the rolling lawn to the big doors, wide open for the warm sun, and went to find his Housemates at lunch in the Great Hall.

Professor Lupin sent a box of mechanical pencils and pens with his next letter, and a clipping from _The Daily Prophet_ that Harry had already been shown by Hermione. The professors still hadn't found whoever was getting pictures of Harry at school all the time, but the _Prophet_ ran a whole article with several images of Harry's first flying lesson. Lupin seemed to think it was funny, but also cautioned Harry about wandering alone anywhere, for safety's sake. Harry replied there was no danger of that, what with everyone always tailing him, and thanked him for proper writing utensils, as quills were impossible. Professor Burbage was fascinated by his mechanical pencils, asking him a lot of questions about how the graphite refilled itself with Muggle magic, and Harry eventually gave one up for her to study at her leisure. Pencils didn't catch on the way slap bracelets and tiddlywinks did, just because Harry said they were cool or useful, but him having them seemed to be all the permission needed for other Muggleborns or half-bloods to start using them, and soon a sizable contingent of students were seen with them in class. They improved Harry's life immensely, since, by the Friday of his second week, Snape sent him immediately to his corner in Potions to work alone. He didn't make Harry face the wall, at least, but he still didn't give Harry a desk, and it was much easier to take notes without having to bother with an inkpot and quill.

That was the only thing that went well in Potions, though.

There was no question now Snape had it out for him. He asked Harry harder questions than anyone else, or else didn't call on him when Harry did know an answer. He returned Harry's first essay with a T for Troll, and so much red ink on it Harry could hardly read the comments, much less what Harry had got wrong under all the scratch-outs. Worst of all, Harry couldn't see the chalkboard from the back, and Snape never read instructions to the class, so Harry was behind before he even started dissecting a frog on a tray balanced across his lap. It was gooey and disgusting and unduly difficult, and he was direly unamused to be served frog legs at dinner that evening.

All told, it was Saturday before he noticed that Ron was avoiding him. Harry slept poorly and stumbled early to the Common Room, startling a house elf who was in to lay a fresh fire. Harry had lots of questions for the elf- why did it wear a tea towel? Did it want clothes? Weren't there magical ways to bring in firewood? Why didn't elves come out during the day? Were there elves who didn't live in houses?- and it was, all told, an absolutely fascinating chat, culminating in several more of the elves popping in- they had their own way of Apparating, one named Bitsy told him- and bringing him a load of treats like tea with sugar and fresh-baked scones with Devonshire cream and hot pumpkin juice, they'd heard he liked it and went into absolute spasms of delight when he thanked them. Amidst all that noise he only belatedly realised Ron had come down, too, and was standing there watching with a strange expression on his face.

'Don't you get tired of it?' Ron asked, and his voice was strange, too, sort of sucked in and tight.

'Tired of house elves?' Harry asked, which set off a horrid storm of self-recrimination from the elves, wailing and banging of tiny fists against their bulbous heads, allayed only when Harry soothed them each individually that he'd only been clarifying, not agreeing.

Ron fwumped down on the saggy couch beside Harry. 'Tired of all the racket,' he said grouchily. 'Tired of everyone screaming "Harry Potter" this, "Harry Potter" that all the time.' He stole a scone from the overflowing platter. 'Everyone tripping all over themselves for you.'

'I can't make them stop,' Harry said. 'I would if I could. I would,' he repeated, because Ron looked sceptical, scattering crumbs with a soft snort. 'Why are you grumpy?'

'I thought it would be different,' Ron offered slowly. He picked the scone apart, ignoring the house elf who swept up after him in the next instant. 'Thought I'd be brilliant at this stuff. Or something at least. Bill was perfect at everything. Charlie was brilliant at Quidditch and Care of Magical Creatures. Percy's got top marks in everything, he's Mum's favourite. The twins don't get good marks, but the professors are always writing home about what geniuses they'd be if they applied themselves. I'm just me.'

'I like you,' Harry said.

'You'll forget about me,' Ron mumbled.

'Why do you think I'd do that? You were my first Wizarding friend.' Harry swirled the grainy dregs of pumpkin juice in his mug. 'First friend, really.'

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

Ron almost smiled, but it drained off his face. 'Harry... I need to tell you something. About meeting you on the train.'

'What about it?'

Ron looked to be in agony. There was a greenish tinge under his freckles, and he squirmed in his seat. 'I... knew who you were, on the train.'

'Everyone knows who I am,' Harry said.

'Yeah, but- I mean, it makes me no better than all those-' Ron flung a hand out at the world beyond the Common Room, sloshing tea over his sleeping pants. 'I wanted to be friends with Harry Potter. I'm the worst person ever.'

'Well, first of all, most of those people out there don't actually want to be friends with me, they just want stuff about me.' Harry's face heated even as he said it. 'Pictures and signatures and stuff. There's not a lot of people who talk to me for me. You and Hermione, and Neville sometimes, and I guess in their way Millie and Draco.'

'Harry, listen to me.' Ron faced him on the couch, brows frowning deeply. 'You need to watch out for those Slytherins. They don't care about you, but they will care what their creepy ole parents tell them to do. Percy reckons a lot of the Pureblood families with Death Eaters in 'em are telling-'

'Hold up, Death Eaters? At Hogwarts?'

'Wait, how do you know about Death Eaters?'

'Er.' Harry couldn't very well say Professor Lupin had told him all about it. Or, evidently, not all. 'I know they were the bad Wizards who did things for Voldemort.' Ron fliched violently at the name. 'Sorry.'

'Well, a lot of the Death Eaters had kids and those kids are here. Like the Bulstrodes and the Malfoys, and those goons Crabbe and Goyle, and the Parkinsons and the Notts and the Lestranges, and a bunch of others too. And Percy says he thinks all those old Death Eaters would be telling their sons to get close to you and their daughters to date you. You'd be the perfect ally for one of those old families trying to claw their way back into power.'

'What power?'

'The Ministry, for one. A lot of those old families have careers in the Wizengamot or the big Departments. They get Harry Potter to say to some paper like the _Prophet_ how they deserve this or that or some bill up for a vote is-'

Harry didn't need telling that these weren't Ron's words. Ron knew a lot about things like Quidditch and Wizards' chess and Gobstones, but early in their first week Harry had asked how the Ministry of Magic could have unelected officials and Ron had just said 'What's an election?' He wasn't entirely sure he believed it from Percy, either, who didn't seem to care much about Houses, just rules. 'So I won't do any of that stuff,' he said.

'Yeah, but-'

'You hear that? Sounds like someone else is up.' Harry hadn't heard a thing, but he considered this topic fully explored. 'Better get to the showers before Seamus uses all the hot water.'

'Harry.' Ron rolled his eyes. 'You know the showers are heated by magic.'

'Yeah, yeah, everything's better here.' Harry grinned. 'So, what you reckon my chances are for making the second-string for Gryffindor?'

It turned out his chances were very high. Gryffindor's try outs were Sunday morning, and Oliver Wood, the sixth year Captain, swept up and down the length of the Quidditch pitch. Harry was absolutely in love with the pitch. The stands were so high, so the audience would be able to see all the players flying around so high above the grounds, and there were tall towers draped in tapestries with the House colours and heraldic devices, but if Harry had anything to say about it he'd never have to watch a game from the stands. He would be out there flying. It was glorious, it was the most wonderful feeling, and in try outs Harry let go of every inhibition and flew as hard as he could. Wood put all the auditioners through their paces for three full hours, picking out people who couldn't keep up or who wouldn't follow instructions. Gradually, the group of twenty who had showed up whittled down to fifteen, then ten. Then Wood brought out the Quidditch balls, and everything got even more amazing.

Harry raced off with a Bludger, batting it at the two Chasers- they were trying out against the players already on the team- and though he never landed a hit, he did well at his coordination, Wood said, so Wood tried him as Keeper then. Harry blocked one goal by another auditioner, but he couldn't block anything from the real team players, and the last Quaffle smacked him in the face and nearly knocked him off his broom. He thought Wood was going to give up on him, but Wood cut a third year who shrieked when a Bludger chased him into one of the Towers instead, and Harry got a chance to try Chaser. It was very entertaining, dodging and weaving with the Quaffle and trying to make goals. His first two tries were stopped by Wood, who played Keeper, but on his third try Harry pulled off a feint that had never really worked for him on two feet in football, and the Quaffle sailed right through the goal over Wood's outstretched hand. Fred Weasley caught it twenty feet below the goalpost, and cheered Harry as he flew by. He did his worst chasing the Snitch, a tiny golden ball with whirring wings. He couldn't see it once it went buzzing off, and the one time he caught a glimpse of sunlight glinting off gold he missed his dive for it and caught air instead. Stupid crap glasses.

'Right,' Wood said. 'Stay behind, Spinnet, Bell, Potter. The rest of you, thanks for coming out. Remember to cheer Gryffindor at the games!'

I made it, Harry realised. He felt a flush of exultation. He had made the team!

Wood met them in the sand below the stands, and the rest of the Gryffindor team crowded around them, shaking hands and clapping them on the back. Wood shushed everyone, and shook hands personally with Harry and the two girls who'd made the team, Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet. They were both a foot taller than Harry at least, and a second and third year besides. Harry tried to imitate their stoic maturity, but George Weasley winked at him behind Wood's shoulder, and Harry couldn't repress his grin.

'Practise Tuesdays and Fridays after dinner, and Saturday noon to five,' Wood told them. 'Reserve players, here's your copy of the Gryffindor playbook. Study it.'

'He'll quiz you,' said Fred.

'To Gryffindor!' Wood shouted, and everyone applauded madly.

Harry felt like he was still floating as he followed the team- his team- back inside. The Weasley twins led everyone in a rousing chorus of the school song, which Harry didn't know yet, but he didn't think the lyrics were likely to include 'bogeys' every chorus. Harry had to skip to keep up with the longer legs of his teammates, but was quite happily tagging along at their heels when they passed a group of first years sitting beneath a tree reading. Harry waved good-bye to Wood, and diverted to join them when Millie flagged him down.

'I made the team!' Harry told them breathlessly, sprawling on the grass beside her.

'Of course you did,' Draco said, rolling his eyes.

'When's your try out?'

'Wednesday,' said Theodore Nott, eying Harry over the rim of his book. He looked away quickly when Harry noticed him.

'Can I come watch?' Harry asked.

Draco glanced up. 'You want to watch me try out?' He coughed, and turned a page. 'If you must.'

'Did you watch me at all? I didn't see any Slytherins in the stands.'

'You're blind as a bat, Potter. You can't see anything.'

'Not the Snitch, anyway.' Harry was far too happy to mind that Draco was mocking him. Gaz was better at baiting Harry than Draco was. 'So, anyway, can I come?'

'Of course you can come,' Millie said. 'You can sit with me.'

'Get off him,' Draco snapped. 'I'm tired of watching you fawn all over him, Bulstrode, he's a little young to trap in a loveless marriage.'

No-one said anything for a moment. Millie turned aubergine. She did drop her hand from Harry's arm, though.

Harry scrunched his nose. 'That was mean.'

'That was Slytherin,' Draco retorted shortly. 'Gryffindors don't understand.'

'People are people,' Harry said. 'I don't think Houses or blood has much to do with that. If we want to be friends, I don't see why anything would stop us doing.'

Everyone went on not saying anything. Nott was staring, and Crabbe was gaping. Millie wasn't looking at him at all, but Draco was, staring him down eye to eye.

'Well, I'm going to come watch you on Wednesday, if you don't mind,' Harry said, and stood up. 'But right now I'm starved. Anyone want to go in? Well, I guess I'll see you in classes next week.'

He hadn't got quite to the doors when rapid footsteps came pounding toward him. Draco. Draco was breathing just slightly harder from running uphill. Harry supposed they'd have to work on that in the exercise courses. Parents who spoilt you and sent you candy every other day weren't doing you lots of favours, Harry thought. He reached out and took a swipe at Draco's hair, mussing it.

'Ugh,' Draco said, shoving him. Harry bounced off the jamb of the Great Doors as they passed through, and laughed. 'Are you always going to use your Harry Potterness for good?'

'When did I do that?'

'Houses or blood? You might want to start your preaching with an easier audience. There are some Hufflepuffs who just learnt to read over there.'

'If you think I'm stupid, you don't have to hang out with me,' Harry said. 'Unless your father told you to.'

Draco seized up tight between one step and the next. Oh, Harry thought. He hadn't actually thought that would be true.

A moment later, though, it didn't matter. Ron and Hermione and Neville came charging into the corridor, all of them holding something long and wrapped in brown paper. 'Harry!' Hermione shrieked, only a note higher than Ron's yell. They came skidding to a halt in front of him and shoved the package into his hands.

'What on earth?'

'Came for you,' Neville gasped. 'Took four whole owls. Brought it at lunch, everyone saw. Open it!'

Was it from Lupin? It didn't have any writing on it other than 'FOR HARRY' in big block letters. And- Harry sucked in a deep breath. He knew what it was. It could only be one thing.

He ripped off the paper. It was a broom. The most beautiful broom he'd ever seen.

'Harry,' Draco said, looking up with wide eyes. 'It's a Nimbus 2000. That's the best sporting broom on the market.'

'I love Hogwarts,' Harry whispered.

'Wait til you tell Oliver Wood,' Ron said. 'He'll love you. And your Nimbus!'

'Oh, Harry, did you make the team?' Hermione asked.

'He's Harry Potter,' Draco said. 'Obviously he made the team.' But he didn't sound too sour about it, and when Harry grinned at him, Draco smiled reluctantly back at him.

'What are we waiting for?' Neville demanded. 'Let's go outside and watch him fly it!'


	6. The Haunted Wood

_In Which Dangerous Games Are Played._

Harry was dreaming.

Or thought he must be dreaming, because he didn't recognise the dim place in which he walked. Tunnels, maybe, squat rounded tunnels that he understood to be a long way down and very hidden, lit only by the light at the end of his wand. He was looking for something, and in the dream he of course knew what it was, but in the way of dreams he both knew and knew as well that he didn't know. But it was the search that was important, not the knowing, so on he went looking, guided through the maze of tunnels by a faint whisper that always seemed to come from just behind him.

'The stone isn't here,' that urgent hiss accused him, and he cried out from a horrid pain in his head- no, in his scar, and it was so frightening that it woke him all at once. For a panicked moment he thought he was still in the tunnels, but it was only that his bed curtains were drawn and it was very dark. Harry ripped at the heavy old drapes and couldn't find the opening, and he was nearly sobbing when he finally gave it up as impossible and just slid out the bed beneath them, landing in a panting heap on the cold stone floor.

'Harry?'

It was Ron. Ron crouched beside him, rubbing soothingly at Harry's shoulder. Brought Harry the fuzzy afghan from his own bed, that his mother had sent just this week, newly knitted just for Ron. It warmed him, slowly, and Harry huddled in it til he realised he'd been crying. He wiped at his eyes, hoping Ron hadn't seen. But Ron fetched him his glasses straightaway, and whispered, 'Ginny used to get awful night terrors, too. Wake up the whole house screaming. Fred and George thought the ghoul was picking on her, but it was just bad dreams.'

I don't get bad dreams like that, Harry almost said, but it wasn't entirely true. There was the nightmare about the green light and the screaming lady; but he knew now, anyway, that it was a memory, not a proper dream, and anyway he didn't want to tell anyone about that. He rubbed at his scar, but the pain was gone.

Ron's eyes followed his hand to his forehead. He screwed his mouth to the side the way he did when he was biting the inside of his cheek, the way he did when he played chess and was thinking of new ways to demolish Harry. But he didn't say anything.

'Sorry,' Harry mumbled finally.

'S'all right.' Ron helped him up. 'Best get back in, though. Charms right after breakfast.'

'Yeah, thanks.' Harry shuffled to his feet, and returned the afghan. 'Ron? Don't, you know... don't tell?'

'Tell what?' Ron shrugged, and went back to bed with nothing but a grin.

Try as he did, Harry didn't sleep again. The hours ticked by in an unrelenting crawl, and it felt like forever and like no time at all had passed when suddenly it was light out. Harry's eyes felt grainy and strained and his body was both too heavy and too light, as if he were floating just a little. He had no appetite, listlessly sipping a cup of hot pumpkin juice in the Great Hall as the chatter of hundreds of students washed over him. His lack of animation seemed to be noted from the Head Table, where McGonagall frowned at him and Dumbledore sat twirling his long beard about the tip of his wand, evidently deep in thought. Snape was watching him, too. Harry felt a little twinge of soreness in his head when he noticed, and rubbed at his scar. It felt warm, he thought, and wasn't sure it had ever done that before.

'Harry?' It was Neville, flushing to get Harry's attention even though he'd come asking for it. 'Hiyas,' he said shyly.

'Hiyas, Neville,' Harry replied, forcing himself to sit up straighter.

'Only I was wondering if I could work with you in Charms?' Neville got it out in a big rush, his words tumbling over each other and ending in a tortured whisper. 'I mean I wouldn't use your wand again, of course.'

'Why not?' Harry asked. 'It works better than yours.'

'Oh, but I... I couldn't. Maybe if you just let me try it once?' Neville gulped, his eyes rolling toward the Head Table. 'I'm so behind. Professor Flitwick says if I don't get Wingardium Leviosa by end of class today he'll have to dock me the whole assignment.'

'It's not your fault,' Harry said, irritated by that. 'And you know the spell. Everyone says you're good at that part.' Inspiration struck. 'You know Latin, right?'

'Latin? Well- yeah. Gran made me learn all of Cicero and Beedle the Bard.'

'Well, I haven't any. We could trade. You teach me Latin, I'll pay you with wand time?'

Hermione had been plainly listening in, and now inserted herself by leaning about Ron and poking her head in. 'Classical or ecclesiastical Latin?' she asked. 'Of course everyone here uses restored Classical, which changes the dipthongs and the vowels, not to mention the hard consonants. Would you cover pronunciation? It would be so useful in finding the accent syllable.'

Neville's eyes were so wide they were almost bugging out like a house elf's. 'I c-can't lead a study group!'

'Oh, but it's a wonderful idea,' Hermione said, as it astonished Neville would pass over such an honour. 'There isn't even a Latin introductory seminar in the Muggle Studies syllabus!'

'And if we could have a study group I bet Professor Flitwick would give you credit towards it in class,' Harry pointed out, and that, at least, caught Neville in a quandry. 'Well, start with tutoring me, at least. I think I say Wingardium Leviosa differently every time.'

'Potter!' It was Oliver Wood, scampering into the Great Hall just as empty plates and crumb-strewn toast racks began to vanish from the tables. 'Potter, I've been up all weekend drafting new strategies for that Nimbus of yours, lovely beastie. When's your free period? I want to review a new flight pattern with you.'

'Oh, er, it's at one,' Harry said. 'After lunch. But I was just making plans with Neville for extra revision-'

'Bother classes,' Wood snapped. Then glanced at the Head Table, and flushed slightly. 'Well, don't bother them off completely, or you'll be on suspension. But bother them today at least. Or this week. Definitely this week. You'll be faster on the Nimbus than any Bludger! We wouldn't have to rely on the Snitch for game points! Do you really need to eat today or could you give up luncheon, too?'

'Of course he needs to eat today, Wood,' Percy said quellingly, and Harry shot him a look of gratitude. Wood was overwhelming in his enthusiasm, and it wasn't like he hadn't been rushing Harry at every available opportunity to integrate Harry's new broom into their team playbook. Harry had developed blisters within a day of owning the Nimbus, and they were hardening to calluses already.

'Oh.' Wood was crestfallen. 'Well... maybe you could just grab a sandwich and meet me on the pitch as soon as you're able?'

'He's a first year,' Percy defended Harry, whilst subtly angling his torso so that his Prefect badge glinted. 'You're not to wear him out with extra-curricular activities, specially when he's only a reserve player.'

'But that's the thing!' Wood grabbed Harry by the arm and pulled. Harry stumbled up from his chair, yanked along to the far end of the Hall, where Wood crowded him against an old worn statue of a smiling man with a wild mane of hair and a large tome clenched in unevenly sculpted hands. 'Potter, I want you off the second string and in the games. I know you're still learning the plays, but we can't give up the advantage of that broom! They've just published the schedule and our first match is with Hufflepuff. See that bloke there, with the hair and the muscles? Cedric Diggory's their Seeker. He got the Snitch in every match last year, every single one, and for most teams that's the end of it. But if we can get our points up high enough from goals with you playing Chaser, and Fred and George just hold them off the Snitch long enough, we could win it. What do you say?'

'I... suppose I say all right?'

'Excellent! Good man.' Wood clapped Harry on the shoulder, rubbed his hair, and very nearly hugged him in his excitement, but Harry squirmed back. 'Sorry,' Wood said. 'I get caught up. Meet me at the pitch, all right? See you, Potter!'

When Harry got back to the table, his untouched bowl of porridge had been vanished. Harry resumed his seat with a sigh. He still felt a bit off, but reckoned if Wood planned on keeping him all mid-day he ought to have had a bit of fruit or something. Too late now, though. The bell was due in ten minutes, and the professors had all left the Head Table already and gone off to get ready. Idle talk reached heights of volume undeterred by the scowling Argus Filch, who was kicking up a fuss about something Peeves the Poltergeist had got up to at the Ravenclaw table, something apparently quite disgusting. Harry craned his head to get a look at it, but Hermione distracted him.

'Oh, my,' she said, tutting over her morning delivery of _The Daily Prophet_.

'Oh, my, what?' Harry asked warily. That tone usually responded to some new article or photograph of Harry doing something like walking to class or smiling at someone or getting an 'A' for 'Acceptable' on his first essay in Transfiguration, his worst course, barring Potions.

Hermione caught his flinch, and smiled sympathetically. 'Not to do with you, don't worry. There was a break-in at Gringotts, the Wizarding bank.'

'Gringotts?' Ron snatched the paper on its way to Harry. 'Gringotts is the most secure place in Britain, no way anyone broke in there! My brother Bill is a curse-breaker for them and he reckons you'd have to get past a hundred curses or more. He's always fixing up some idiot who tried to get into his rich uncle's vault and got hit with Egyptian earmites or a Bedazzling Hex. And he says there's even a dragon guarding the most valuable vaults.'

Harry read over Ron's shoulder. 'Oh, I met that one,' he said, pointing to the picture of a goblin who scowled at the camera and grumbled to himself in Gobbledygook. 'His name's Griphook. He helped me with my account.'

'The general manager?' Hermione was impressed by that. 'Well, you are Harry Potter, I suppose.'

'No, I think it was more there was a problem with my vault key.' Too late, Harry realised he mightn't want to share that bit of information. After all, Headmaster Dumbledore had had lots of opportunities since Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to give him back his key, and hadn't done it yet. Harry supposed it might be that he'd just forgot all about it in the intervening years- he was a bit dotty, after all. But neither did Harry want to ask him for it, or have wind get back to him that he was asking, not til Harry knew what to do about the Dursleys getting his money and lying about him. 'Well, someone got past all the curses, looks like.'

Ron whistled. 'Ten galleons it was Sirius Black.'

Harry came alert. He knew that name. Where had he heard that name? Neville's head rose from his Charms book, too, and Harry thought, concerned, that Neville looked rather pale.

'Oh, the Dark Wizard who escaped Azkaban?' Seamus asked, slipping in beside Ron to look at the paper. 'Me mam says for sure he's hiding in Ireland. He used to be a big supporter of Ireland's Quidditch teams.'

Harry found that a little ridiculous, as logic for evading capture went, but it was a more commodious thought than that Sirius Black was hunting around for Harry or for his other Dark companions. 'Well... I don't reckon it's all that hard for a Dark Wizard to get from Ireland to Diagon Alley and back again,' he said.

Ron was scoffing. 'What's he gonna do in Ireland, practise curses on sheep? I bet he's holed up in Knockturn Alley.'

'What's-' Harry began.

'It's like Diagon Alley, it's Wizarding, but it's a little unsavoury,' Hermione told him.

'More than a little,' Ron countered. 'S'where I'd go if I were a Dark Wizard.'

'Fine Dark Wizard you'd be, can't even tie his shoes,' said one of the twins from up the table, flicking his wand at Ron, and a moment later Ron went over backwards in his chair, squawking and scrambling to undo the laces knotting frantically all the way up his long legs.

'Fred,' Percy said, in the tones of a man who'd suffered dreadfully, but the bell rang before Percy could launch a good scolding, and the twins didn't wait around for it, anyway, bolting off giggling to themselves.

'Are you all right?' Harry asked Neville, under the racket of everyone rising to go.

'Oh,' Neville said, blinking owlishly at him and blushing red again. 'Oh, yeah. I'm only being silly.'

'I don't think you're very silly, Neville.'

Harry had noticed before that kind words went a long way with Neville. He was very timid at the least sign of displeasure, specially from their teachers, and he was already shaping up to be an absolute disaster in Potions, where Snape singled him out for criticism almost as much as he did Harry. Harry had yet to hear anything good about the Longbottoms, who had not only dropped Neville out of windows and forced him to use a wand that didn't like him, but had also kept Neville indoors all his life without any friends his own age. Harry hadn't really had friends, either, but Neville wasn't strange, like Harry had always thought himself, strange enough anyway that the Dursleys had got rid of him as fast as they could. Neville was only bookish, like Hermione, but too shy to speak up for himself like she did, and always putting himself down. It raised all of Harry's protective instincts. Boys like Neville ended up at Crowhill more often than not, in the Muggle world. Harry didn't know what the Wizarding version of Crowhill would be, but he shouldn't like to see Neville in it if his family decided, as Neville clearly feared they would, that he wouldn't shape up to a proper Wizard even with schooling.

'Oh, I am,' Neville said now, with an accepting shrug. He sighed. 'I wish I could be brave like you. You don't even mind about Sirius Black, do you?'

'I can't do anything about him,' Harry replied philosophically. 'Anyway, if he's breaking into banks he's not coming after me.'

'Maybe he is. Wizards keep all kinds of things in their vaults, because the goblins don't have to obey some Wizarding laws.' Hermione fell into step with them, weighed down by an armful of books in front and a well-stuffed rucksack behind. 'They don't have to turn over a Wizard's vault when they go to prison, for one. All Black would have to do is show up and he'd be given access straight away. Oh,' she said, her chin tilting up and her eyes narrowing as she thought it through. 'But then he wouldn't have had to break in, would he. So what would be there that he'd need that badly?'

'He's not the only Dark Wizard who has a vault still,' Neville said simply, significantly, and trailing off into an uneasy silence that lasted them all the way to Charms.

Try as he did, Harry couldn't quite shake the thought of Sirius Black breaking into Gringotts. Or breaking into a specific vault at Gringotts, he supposed. _The Daily Prophet_ hadn't any idea of what had been stolen, though it had speculated wildly and complained vociferously about the lack of cooperation from the goblins. There followed, that week, several articles about the break-in, alternately portrayed as an epic disaster which could lead to a total collapse of the Wizarding economy as terrified Purebloods withdrew all their treasures in a panic, or as a minor trifle of vaguely historic interest. Harry got to see Ron's brother Bill, who was featured in an interview about security measures in the vaults- Bill had long hair and an earring and a dashing smile, and Harry noticed a red-cheeked Hermione clipping the article with Bill's picture to prize away in one of her textbooks, but didn't mention it to Ron, who seemed rather put off by similar stunts from a number of Gryffindor girls. The _Prophet_ also ran an unflattering article about goblin history, insinuating that the goblins had Dark connections of their own: some goblin clans had gone over to Voldemort during the war, and anyway magical beasts were naturally Dark.

Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, was uncharacteristically upset by that, and his droning lecture was, for once, rather interesting. Binns declaimed at length about the misclassification of goblins in Wizarding law, and that was how Harry learnt there was an entire Department in the Ministry devoted to the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, including any number of groups Harry thought were only dubiously creature-like, such as house elves and werewolves and vampires and mermen. 'How do the goblins run a bank, then, if they're regulated?' Harry asked.

Binns blinked white eyes at him. 'Er- what?'

Possibly no-one had ever asked a question in his class before. A good half of Harry's classmates were outright sleeping. Hermione was watching with interest, taking copious notes, but Ron just sat nodding over his blank parchment, a slight snore escaping his parted lips.

'How do goblins run a bank, if they're under regulation and control?' Harry repeated. 'If creatures are only subject to Wizarding law then Wizards would have to run the bank. Or maybe they're like house elves? Are they made to run it?'

'Goblins are entrepreneurs,' Binns informed him, though he still seemed startled, his filmy body flickering in and out as he replied. 'Historically they have had a thriving civilisation alongside the Wizarding World. The relegation of monetary policy to goblin control dates back to the 1534 treaty between the Lady Anne Boleyn and the goblin king Rumplestiltskin, in exchange for a goblin fertility charm which resulted in the birth of Princess Elizabeth, later Queen. The treaty-'

Eyes were glazing over again. 'So goblins must trade with other creatures, too,' Harry said, interrupting when Binns ignored his raised hand. 'Gringotts seems awfully big for just a few thousand Wizards. Muggle banks are all connected all over the world, and that's billions of people.'

Binns was definitely getting flustered. 'Goblins do trade with other species, you are correct, Pippins. In fact- yes- why, in 1842, a lich was briefly elected President of the Goblin Banking Association, though it later emerged that he'd enchanted the majority shareholders-'

'But wouldn't there be a lot more other creatures than just Wizards? Why do Wizards get to make all the laws to govern everything if there's not as many Wizards as anything else? Couldn't they just outvote us? Could there ever be a goblin Minister of Magic?'

And that was how Harry learnt about politics. The _Prophet_ had the story the next morning, a big headline above the fold on the front page: **HARRY POTTER ADVOCATES REVOLUTION, CHAMPIONS GOBLIN MINISTER!** Harry didn't even try to stay in the Great Hall once Hermione showed him the article at breakfast. There were whispers all around him, and people shaking their heads and talking to each other behind their hands while staring at Harry with wide eyes. Harry managed a few miserable sips of pumpkin juice and gave it up as a bad job. Wood, at least, was unaffected by Harry the Revolutionary. He caught Harry up as soon as he left the Gryffindor table, and Harry supposed if he were flying he wouldn't be thinking, so he agreed to get his broom and head for the pitch.

Professor McGonagall met him up in the Common Room when he descended the stairs with his Nimbus. She smiled on seeing him, but Harry knew that tense look behind her eyes. 'Am I in trouble?' he asked, hanging back by the tapestry of Ninephus the Nimble kickboxing a centaur.

'No, Mr Potter,' McGonagall said, and gestured him forward. Harry came reluctantly, tucking his broom at his feet and sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace. McGonagall didn't sit with him, and he didn't like feeling that small with her looking down at him. He picked at a ragged thumbnail.

'I suppose I don't have to point out that your opinions carry undue weight in our world,' McGonagall said at last. 'It's not fair, but there it is, nonetheless.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Harry mumbled. 'But it wasn't an opinion, it was just a question.'

'I want you to be able to ask questions, Mr Potter, as much as any student. Just...'

'Professor? How do they keep finding out what I do here?'

'A question I intend to answer and a riddle I intend to solve,' she told him firmly. 'I want you to know I will personally be investigating this. And, if you like, I will write a letter to your relatives explaining our security measures. The safety of our students is paramount, and I assure you we are taking this seriously.'

Harry didn't panic at that, but it was a near thing. His mind went blank, unhelpfully, and he fish-mouthed for a minute before everything kicked back to good working order. 'Oh,' he said, 'you... you know about my relatives?'

She glanced at the closed portal, and then went a step farther than he'd been expecting and removed her wand from her sleeve to cast a spell that raised a kind of bubble of silence around them. It even dimmed the light a bit, so that Harry had to squint to see her. 'I am one of few who do,' she replied quietly. 'I was with the Headmaster when he delivered you to them.'

'Then you know they're Muggles.'

'I do. At this point, I believe most of our world has guessed you were not raised a Wizard- your general naivete, if you will forgive the term, about basic Wizarding facts, and your presence in Professor Burbage's Muggle Orientation Course.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Harry said. 'Only I just think it's not a good idea to be contacting them a lot with post. They are Muggles, you see, which means they don't use owl post.'

McGonagall blinked at that. As Harry had expected, she was the kind of Wizard who, like Ron, could take ideas like that into account once they were pointed out to her, but was otherwise so steeped in her own ways that she didn't even realise simple things about the non-magical world beyond hers. 'But how did you get your invitation to Hogwarts?' she asked, nonplussed. 'And you were meant to send along your first-week report, your marks-'

'I did,' Harry hastened to assure her. 'And I got the invitation the same way. I have a, a, neighbour... I have a family friend who brings me my Wizarding post.' That was relatively truthful. Lupin had been friends with his parents, if not his Aunt and Uncle.

'Well, that's good to know. If you provide me their name and address, I can certainly send my report to this friend of yours instead. But, Mr Potter, you seem to have a good head on your shoulder about keeping the location of your relatives or even their identities under wraps, but it bears repeating. It would not be a good idea for the press to get wind of where you reside when you are not at Hogwarts. You can trust this friend to keep your secret?'

She said that rather oddly, Harry noticed. Almost as if 'secret' came with a capital ess only she could see. 'Yes, Professor,' he replied obediently. 'He's kept all my secrets.'

'Then you might also consider varying which owl you use. There are enough flying here and there about the grounds, but there may be some enterprising person who would like to intercept or at least trace your post.'

That was a distressing idea. Harry had only written a few letters to Lupin so far, and Lupin to him likewise, and Harry had used a different owl every time just because he was reliant on the school owls, not having one of his own. You weren't allowed large pets til third year.

McGonagall must have seen in his face that he was disturbed. She made a move toward him, then retracted it at the last moment, so that her sleeve brushed his shoulder but not her hand. 'I expect the fuss will die down as they get used to you,' she said gruffly, and removed the bubble spell. Suddenly Harry could see better again, and hear the crackle of the fire, and the wind rattling in the chimney, and smell burning cedar. That was a good spell. He'd like to learn that one.

'Professor-'

He had a change of mind himself, but McGonagall looked back on her way to the door, and prompted him when he would have let it drop. 'Yes, Potter?'

'You don't think Sirius Black would try to come here, do you?'

The soft wrinkles by her mouth went very taut and tight. 'What do you know about Sirius Black?'

'That he's a bad man,' Harry said. 'That he worked for Voldemort and he broke out of the prison with the name I can't remember ever.'

'Azkaban.' McGonagall had winced, just a bit, when Harry said Voldemort's name, but he never remembered not to do that, either. 'He is a bad man,' she said, quite gently for her, where she was usually sterner. 'But he is not so great a Wizard that he can break into Hogwarts.'

'The way he did Gringotts?'

'If that was him,' she said, and now she was stern again, or mostly. 'You are well-protected here, Mr Potter. Not even He Who Must Not Be Named breached these walls, with Dumbledore as Headmaster here.'

With that, Harry had to be content. And Harry had to hurry. Wood had been waiting for him at the pitch, and would be pulling his hair out by now.

Harry's first Quidditch match arrived all too soon, so far as Harry was concerned. He wasn't nervous, precisely, but he felt a great deal of inexpressible, irrepressible something that made him overly excited and wildly anxious by turns. He stayed up late the night before the match attempting to meet Wood's contradictory advice, which was to rest and to review the Gryffindor playbook til he could recite it on demand. Consequently it had all got jumbled in his brain by breakfast, where he only managed to choke down a single forkful of eggs before applying himself very unwisely to a sugary cup of tea, so that by the time the team were marching from the locker room to the pitch he had a ball of pressure in his belly that meant he'd have to pee all throughout the game, and if it went on for four days like Lupin had told him Harry didn't even know what he'd do. The sugar did him no good, either, the brief energy it had given him fading to jitters, and he stared about him, hardly able to take anything in. There was so much to see! The pitch was glorious, all the tapestries fresh and snapping in the breeze, and it seemed like every single student had packed into the stands, all of them screaming and cheering and clapping and waving hand-made posters or banners with their House colours. It was such a riot of noise that Harry missed half of Wood's last-minute exhortation to something or other, and came back only when Fred or George, he was too scattered to even attempt telling them apart, nudged him in the ribs, or what would have been his ribs if Harry were half as tall as any of the older players, so George or Fred caught him in the chin by accident, and Harry scrambled to get at his glasses where they popped off into the sand. Harry was very red-faced by the time he got himself in order, and then there was no more time for messing up. Madam Hooch had blown her whistle, and Harry's teammates all swung a leg over their brooms and rose into the air, zooming off to take their positions. Harry hurried to join them.

'All right, Potter!' The bellowed encouragement from a knot of Gryffindors had Harry grinning, some of his jitters allayed by their support. As always, the wind blowing through his hair and the sleek swift response of his broom were physical joy to him, and once he was in the air he felt calmer about the entire business. In fact, if he pretended hard enough, he could imagine his parents were sitting there in the teachers' box like a few other mums and dads who'd come to watch their children in the first match of the schoolyear. His dad would be grinning fit to split his head, and his mum would have brought a banner with Harry's name on it, surely, and they would cheer with pride every time Harry got a goal. It was a delicious fantasy, and Harry let it buoy him high in the air, so ready to play that his hands itched.

Below on the sand, Hooch stood over the two captains, who pressed palms briefly and then stepped back onto their brooms. Wood flew off to the Gryffindor goalpost, and the Hufflepuff captain joined the other Beater, and then Hooch released another ear-splitting whistle, and released as well the balls.

'And the game is on!' shouted the student announcer, but Harry could hardly hear anything after that, he was so busy flying. Gryffindor captured the Quaffle immediately, and it seemed hardly a blink before Harry had it. Everything went just as he'd practised with Wood- Fred and George played offence to clear his path, til Harry dived under one and over the Hufflepuff player they were Beating out of his path, and let the Nimbus take over. No-one was anywhere near him when Harry threw his first goal, and the Hufflepuff Keeper looked stunned as Harry dropped like a stone to grab the Quaffle on the other side of the goalpost, breathless with delight. And it went like that twice, and a third time, and a fourth, all in quick succession, before the Hufflepuffs finally rallied and made a goal of their own. Then it was a proper chase, Harry and the other two Gryffindor Chasers pursuing the Hufflepuffs across the field, the Bludgers weaving in and out but never making contact with a single Gryffindor player. Whenever Harry thought he could spare a moment he tried for a glimpse of the scoreboard. Their strategy was working! Gryffindor were stealing the lead as if they were the only team playing, and his Housemates in the stands were off their nut, dancing on their seats and screaming themselves hoarse.

'Harry!' The Quaffle smacked into Harry's hands and he was off again. George, he was fairly sure by now it was George, kept pace with him as he made his way across the field once again, and when they were just over halfway to the Hufflepuff goalpost Harry broke ahead, swooping a wide right, and barrelled straight at a cluster of Hufflepuff players. They all came after him, like a school of fish swerving toward a tasty treat, but at the last moment Harry swung left instead, and soared up over them, leaving them all behind in his wake as he sped toward the goal. Their Keeper looked almost resigned as Harry flew toward him, plopped astride his broom square in the middle of the three posts, not that it mattered. Harry had scored on all of them by now, because the Keeper couldn't match him for speed. Harry zipped and zagged and hurled the Quaffle-

One of the Hufflepuff Beaters appeared from nowhere, and whacked at the Quaffle with his bat so hard it came right back at Harry, smashing into his face. Harry went hot and numb and dizzy, and spun out on his Nimbus before he realised, dimly, that he was falling. He threw himself forward as the playbook instructed, plastering himself prostrate on his broomstick. Was Madam Hooch blowing the whistle? Then a fist latched onto his collar, and the almighty yank threw him spread-eagled for a moment before he caught the Nimbus close again and levelled out.

'Thanks,' he croaked, but it wasn't one of his teammates. It was Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker. He let go of Harry cautiously, reaching out a quick hand when Harry slid sideways on his broom, but Harry righted himself. 'Er- thanks.'

'Took one to the back of the head once,' Diggory said. He pushed his goggles off his face, squinting at Harry. 'You need a time-out? Your captain should call it.'

'I'm all right.' Harry felt gingerly at his nose. There was wet coming off it, but he'd lost his glasses somewhere, in the hit or the fall after the hit. He couldn't tell if it was blood or snot. He wiped it on his trouser leg. 'You, just, er, thanks.'

'Diggory and Potter seem to be having a lovely conversation, as the Snitch escapes Diggory once again,' came the acid commentary from the student announcer. 'Tea time's over, love, get to it!'

Diggory flushed. 'Good luck,' he said, sounding embarrassed and rueful, and then he was gone, climbing back up to the top of the pitch.

Harry looked about. He'd fallen rather a long way, and he didn't recall that Diggory had been all that nearby. Wood was shouting something from the Gryffindor goalpost, and gesturing madly, but Harry was too far away to hear. His head hurt, and his neck, a bit. Harry took a tentative fly-over of the sand pit, but finding his glasses without his glasses was always chancy. Was that a glint off the frames? He dove for it. Yes, there, a flash of gold light-

Harry yanked his hand back as if burnt. It wasn't his glasses. It was the Snitch. And it went on hovering right there, as if confused as to why Harry wouldn't want it. Its delicate wings fluttered like lace, and it bobbed gently from side to side, but it didn't fly away.

'Sorry,' Harry whispered, and tried to swat it without touching it. 'Shoo. Go away. Or-' He twisted on his broom to look up, but he couldn't tell who was who amongst the vaguely reddish and yellowish blurs far above his head. If the Gryffindor Seeker Mo Milai would just notice Harry down here and come before Diggory did, they could win!

But no-one did come, and the commentator was most of why, he realised, when he heard his name. 'Potter's still looking for his specs, I reckon, pitiful really. A lesson in putting a new player on the line before they're tested, isn't that right? Oh, good save, Wood, that's Oliver Wood blocking an attempted goal from "Peppermint Patty" Oswald-'

'Shoo!' Harry flapped an arm at the Snitch. He had the distinct impression it cocked its head at him like a curious bird, though it had no head. But Harry couldn't capture it, only the Seeker could. Tentatively Harry rose a few feet in the air, and the Snitch keep pace with him. 'Will you please go aw-'

Harry's voice died in his throat. The Snitch had obeyed at last. But instead of heading up for the game being played over their heads, it took a circuitous little stroll a few inches above the sand, and took up a waiting stance under the lowermost rung of the Ravenclaw tower.

That was no good. Milai would never spot the Snitch if it were determined to hide like that. Maybe Harry could flush it out? Harry flew toward it slowly. The Snitch gave a little eager bob, and went further in the shadow of the tower, requiring Harry to duck his head to get between the slats of wood. The Snitch did a little dance about Harry's head, and he arched away so as not to touch it even accidentally, but it brushed over his hair and then flew along what Harry thought must be the underside of the stands, going at a steep angle. Harry followed it up, and they began a pattern, with the Snitch leading him on a ways and then hastening back to his side, then darting off again. Harry bit his lip when the Snitch slipped out through a slit in the tapestry, but it looked big enough for him, and so out he went, too, and found they had emerged on the side of the pitch facing the Forbidden Forest. They were still only about halfway up the stands, well below the level of gameplay, and no-one was looking down the backside of the stands, naturally, so Harry was the only one to see when the Snitch rolled a delighted figure-eight of pure freedom, and took off merrily for the Forest.

'Oh, bugger,' Harry said, and hied off after it.

He could barely see where they were going, only that a blob of vivid green was headed straight for him. Or, rather, he for it. He ducked his first tree branch so nearly that he felt a sting on his cheek of leaves whacking at him, and then clusters of leafy oak became dense thickets, and gradually the warmth and brightness of the sun was blocked off by tall branches spread all overhead. There was birdsong, and quite exotic birdsong at that, something cawing and something else hooting and something entirely different releasing a menacing- howl? Harry shivered. Oh, this was not good. He realised, of course, that he ought to have just let the Snitch go, and told Wood or Madam Hooch about it escaping, but, well, he hadn't, and if he went back now no-one would know where the Snitch had got to. Should he just capture it and have done with it? If Hufflepuff didn't get the Snitch they wouldn't have enough points to win, even if Gryffindor took a penalty for improper play. Maybe he could lure it back? Would would entice an enchanted ball to do anything?

Indecision took him deeper into the Forest, following that occasional glint of gold, but the Snitch seemed to know its purpose, and its path, and where they were going was getting rockier and the ground beneath him angled upward and Harry thought they were probably at the base of the mountains now, which he had only ever seen at a distance from Hogwarts' yards. The birds were still singing as he passed their trees, but he heard new sounds, too, sounds he'd never ever heard in the city. There was water bubbling somewhere, and there were scrub bushes rustling, and he saw what he thought was a hedgehog til he was right overtop it and it opened its mouth to bare big fangs at him. Harry climbed with a yelp and then went diving back down again, as his rapid rise had put him right in the path of a huge glittery spiderweb, at the centre of which was something very very big wrapped all up in silk and squirming as if it were still alive. 'I should go back,' he said, and his voice echoed oddly, though it shouldn't have anything to echo against, and he huddled in his robes, suddenly chilled.

And then he heard the strangest sound of all. An oddly familiar hiss, and it said something he thought was ' _Stupefy!_ ' A beam of red light came streaming out of the gloom, and it hit Harry right in the chest, harder even than the Bludger and numbing him head to toe instantly, and then he was falling, and then all was darkness.

It seemed a long time later. Or maybe just a blink. The Snitch hovered over him. Something else hovered behind the Snitch, a dark figure outlined by the swaying trees and a strange sickly glow. Harry had time to breathe in, and then something very cold touched his forehead, brushing his hair away, and Harry screamed as the most terrible pain grabbed him and tried to break him into a million pieces.

He was only aware that someone- something- else was screaming, too, when the pain ended. Harry sobbed, writhing on the damp loam beneath him. He felt as if he'd been beaten and stretched and smothered and sat on and everything horrible he could think of. He could barely think, except that he wanted away. He scrabbled fistfulls of dirt, trying to drag himself away from the dark figure. It let him go, but only because it, too, was struggling to catch its breath.

'Don't let the boy escape!'

That hiss. He knew that hiss. He'd heard it in his dream, the same sibilant whisper as 'the stone isn't here'.

His wand was in his robe. Wood had said not to fly without it, as a first year- he wouldn't need it to connect with the broom when he was older, but for now it was safest. Harry fumbled for it, shaking so hard he could barely grasp it. ' _Protego!_ ' he shouted, the only spell they'd covered in Defence Against the Dark Arts that Harry knew might protect him against anything, even if they'd only used it for minor hexes so far. But something rebounded off his shield almost the moment he had it raised, and he flinched back, casting it again over his shoulder as he scooted on knees and one hand to the shelter of a fallen tree, huddled low behind it. His hand slipped in something slick and hot, and he recoiled, revolted. It was silver on his palm and the shaft of his wand, and it tingled strangely when he swished his wand through the air and cast ' _Confundo!_ '.

The hex hit with percussive force. Harry felt it hit, and panicked before he realised it wasn't he who'd been hit- it had hit the dark figure, which lurched away with a cry and tumbled. Harry ducked down low behind the tree trunk, panting. That spell had worked on Ron once and Neville, too, but never like that! How...?

Harry risked another glance, and wiped his slimy hand against his robe. What was that stuff? He was sure now it was burning. Sap or something from the tree? He tried to feel his way, but didn't encounter bark or branches or leaves. The tree felt more like- hair, not moss. Like an animal, not a tree at all. The tree wasn't a tree. It had fur, a thick glossy coat of coarse hair, and what he'd slid in wasn't rain water or rot. It was blood. He lay against a huge white horse, with a great black eye that had gone creamy and fixed and staring. A beautiful horn grew right out of the horse's head, sparkling diamond spiralling to a pinprick point that had scored a deep rivet in the earth as it fell. A unicorn, and it was dead.

'Boy...' The hiss seemed to come from all around him. Harry held his breath, trying not to give himself away, but it came from everywhere, and he couldn't bloody see. 'Boy, Harry. Harry Potter. Come out, Harry Potter.'

Harry wiped his streaming nose on his sleeve. He had to run. He had to run, he knew, he just knew that hiss was going to hurt him. Kill him.

'It's too soon, Master. You're not ready.'

That was a different voice. An unsteady voice, a meek voice, but a new one. Harry stared about him wide-eyed, but it was too dark and everything but that poor dead unicorn going cold against Harry's back was a blur.

'Silence! Do not defy me, weakling. He's only a child.'

Spells. Harry needed a spell. Something to distract the men while he ran for it. If he could get to his broom he could fly out, just as he'd come in, but he couldn't see it anywhere. His hand was burning, the hand with all the unicorn's blood on it, and his head was aching so hard he thought it might burst, and his scar was on fire. He wiped his nose again and his eyes and choked back tears. He didn't know any spells that would help him, couldn't hardly remember any in his fright. Wingardium Leviosa? He didn't need to float anything. Lumos? Light would only point him out, if they couldn't see him in the dark. Transfiguration? He couldn't-

He could, maybe. All he had about him were leaves and dirt and a pebble or two he could feel under him, and the Snitch, which still hovered at his shoulder. Could he make that into anything? Making a Snitch into a Bludger he could throw at the voices would be useful. He reached out, and took the Snitch right out of the air. It was warm and quivering happily, its little wings tickling his fingers. He didn't know the spell, but Professor McGonagall said in class that words were just a way of directing magic, and will was the rest of it, and if you wanted a thing badly enough sometimes you could make things happen, which was why Harry got such strange results all the time in her class, wanting without knowing how to do it correctly. He wanted this, all right, he wanted it more than anything he'd ever wanted. He flicked his wand out-

A low and menacing growl issued from the jagged black blurs of the trees. Harry dropped low, flat to the ground.

'What is that?' the hiss demanded.

'Master, all sorts of creatures abound in the Forest-'

'Destroy it and get me the boy!'

The growl was coming nearer. Harry held his breath, held it so long and so hard that stars began to burst in his vision. The Snitch was vibrating in his fist, tired now of being held, wanting to fly again.

' _Hominem Revelio,_ ' the whimpering voice cried, and Harry began to glow, his hiding place revealed.

The growl stopped right overtop of Harry. He squeezed his eyes shut, sure he was about to be murdered, eaten, squashed by some horrible monster, before the hissing man could get anywhere near him. A wet nose pushed into his cheek, and the growl stopped for just a moment, just a second, and then- Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. The growl became a deep throaty bark, vicious and terrifying, and then the beast leapt over Harry and the unicorn and charged straight at the evil hiss man.

' _Confringo!_ ' howled the scared man, but it was choked off and a heavy thud was bodies hitting the ground. ' _Petrificus! Sectum-_ ' A gurgle of blood interrupted the voice, and the hissing man was shrieking something, but Harry saw his chance and bolted. He lurched upright and ran for it, just straight ahead of him into the trees, and the hissing man screeched at his back. ' _Stupefy!_ '

The curse tore through a tree to get to Harry. The darkness was almost welcome, this time. At least he wouldn't be awake to know how they killed him.

It was like swimming at night. Not that he'd ever been swimming, at night or otherwise. But it felt like that, thrashing at the water with heavy limbs, his chest gagging for air, everything dull and strange. Swimming toward the little bit of light that he could see, two slits far ahead of him that got larger and larger as he paddled toward them.

The light was the setting sun. Silhouetted against the sun was a man, a man with long ragged hair and strong wiry arms that carried Harry tucked close to a rapidly beating heart.

I'm dead, Harry realised. That hadn't been so horrible. 'Dad?' he mumbled, trying to squint against the light.

'No, Harry.' They were climbing a hill. Harry couldn't see much of anything, crammed against the man's chest, but he heard ' _Alohomora,_ ' and then they were passing through a door into a cool dim place that smelled good, like stew and fire and fragrant wood. Harry was lowered onto something very soft, a deep mattress that enveloped all of him as even his beautiful Hogwarts bed had not, and the man tucked him in properly, the way dads were supposed to, wrapping a warm thick blanket firmly about Harry, and then the man brushed Harry's hair back from his forehead. Harry tensed, expecting it might hurt the way it had when the dark man in the Forest had done that, but it didn't hurt at all. This man just leant down and pressed dry lips to Harry's forehead, and all the fear and pain and surety that he was going to die left Harry in a rush. He felt tears prick his eyes again, but they were good tears this time.

'If you're not my Dad,' he whispered, his throat raw and tight, 'who are you?'

'A friend,' the man murmured. He stroked Harry's hair. 'You were so brave, Harry. You'll be safe here, back on Hogwarts' grounds. Don't go back to the Forest, especially not alone. Promise me.'

Never. Never in his life. 'You were there?' he wondered, but he was fading, as if his body agreed the danger was past and was beyond all pretence. He just wanted to sleep. 'Did you see... did you see the beast? It saved me.'

'I saw a boy who did very well. Don't trust your professor, Harry. There was something very strange going on there.'

Harry was back in the water, swimming, only this time he was going the other way, sinking down. 'Where are we?'

'This is Hagrid's hut. They've only just realised you've gone. They'll find you soon. Til then, rest.'

Rest, said Oliver Wood, which rhymed with Test, which he'd been doing all week, testing Harry for... for the Snitch that he still held in his hand, docile and humming just a little against his fingers, resting.

'Rest, Harry,' the man told him, stroking his hair, like dads did to send you to sleep, and Harry did.


	7. The Dursleys

_In Which Several Things Are Discussed And No Conclusions Reached._

Harry opened his eyes to see a dark tall shape bending over him. 'Oh, it's you,' he said, calming.

There was a strange long pause. Then, 'Yes, it's me,' the dark man said, and put Harry's glasses in his hand.

Harry was already pushing up on his elbows as he crammed them on. 'Thanks for finding- them,' he faltered, clamming up in one big clench when he realised it was not, in fact, the dark man. Or, rather, not the dark man he'd been expecting. It was Severus Snape, the Potions Master, and Snape was frowning down at him as if Harry were a particularly difficult puzzle.

Or was he the same dark man? All Harry could really recall was long dark hair, which Snape did have. But the dark man had kissed his forehead, he was sure of that. And had been nice to him and had brought back his broom from the Forest, Harry had already been told it was safe, and his wand as well. And now Snape had brought him his glasses.

'Thank you for finding them,' Harry said again, because the silence was strange and he didn't like it, and he felt he should, just in case.

Snape responded by straightening up so fast someone might have pinched him. His face went tight too, and he folded his arms across his chest, the long fingers of his left hand wrapping tight about the right bicep, white on his black robe. 'The Headmaster has asked for you,' he said. 'You may take the time to dress.'

There were clothes waiting for Harry- not the clothes he'd been wearing when he'd been found, his Quidditch uni, but a pair of his overlarge hand-me-downs denims and a grey hoodie descended from many generations of Crowhill boys. The trainers he wore at weekends had appeared as well, sans socks, and Harry donned it all behind a screen as Snape lingered in the open floor between the rows of beds, from the sounds of his heels on the stone stalking back and forth. He'd gone toward the windows when Harry emerged, and turned about with a flare of his black robes, his impatient frown smoothing abruptly.

'I'm sorry to make you wait,' Harry said. 'Sir.'

Snape's eyes narrowed, as if he suspected Harry's attempt at politeness. Then, just as jerkily, he put out an arm. To point. At the door. Harry took a few steps toward it, then stopped and turned back. He said, 'I don't know where I'm to go.'

'The Headmaster has asked for you,' Snape repeated, somewhat more loudly than before, as if he suspected Harry were deaf as well as stupid.

Harry flushed. 'I- I mean I don't know if he wants me in his office or-'

'In his office, Mr Potter.' Snape heaved a heavy sigh and came striding at Harry, who moved aside before he could get run down. 'I shall escort you. There will be no dawdling. The Headmaster is an important and busy man.'

Harry had hardly suggested otherwise. But he supposed it was reassuring, in its own odd way, that Snape was done trying to be nice and back to being himself, scowly and temperamental.

Despite all the napping he'd done since he'd been brought back to the school, Harry found Snape's long-legged pace exhausting. He was dragging when they took one of the moving staircases for a lift, and nearly missed getting off in time before it went on to its next stop, and Snape said his name sharply, but nothing more than that, and they did go just a bit slower after. It was a relief to just stand behind Snape on the rotating escalator stairs up to Dumbledore's study, and he was lulled into a momentary daydream, eyes closed, when Snape's hand latched onto his shoulder and pulled at him. He walked with Snape guiding him to a stop just in front of the Headmaster's big desk, and sat when Snape pushed at him, in a chair that was too tall for him and left his feet dangling but felt so soft and cushioned and warm as if it had been sat in front of a fire waiting for him that his eyes almost slid closed again.

'Would you like a cup of chocolate, Mr Potter?'

That was Dumbledore. Harry tried to sit up, only to find a blanket had come from somewhere to cover his legs, and there were now several more people around him. Including the Headmaster, who was holding a mug that steamed above a tall pile of folded cream dotted with peppermint and marshmallow. 'There you are,' Dumbledore said brightly, as Harry freed a hand to accept it. 'I always find a bit of chocolate soothes the senses.'

'I'm sorry I fell asleep again.'

'No need to apologise,' said Professor McGonagall, who smiled at him over Dumbledore's shoulders. 'It's given us all a chance to arrive.'

Yes, all. All the Heads of the four Houses were here now, little Flitwick and tubby cheery Sprout, and McGonagall of course and Snape, who had found a shadowy corner to stand in as if he missed his dim dungeons. Everyone had a mug of something, which was how Harry realised it was only morning, possibly quite early morning, with the sun just rising and glowing lavender and orange in the big window at the far end of the study. Fawkes the phoenix was snoring audibly, his head tucked under a lovely wing. And there were several other people Harry had never met before, who were all avidly staring at him as they whispered amongst themselves. They were quite posh, for Wizards. A man with rich pinstripe robes and a lime green bowler hat and a jowly jaw had hold of a big gold pocketwatch, and to his left stood a man who wore a luxurious cloak lined with snowy white fur and little black tufts, and a silver chain in his waistcoat and a silver-headed cane which he caressed with one hand. And to his other side stood a woman in a curve-hugging dress of eye-popping banana yellow. Jewelled rings glittered on every finger and dangled from her earlobes, and even her cats-eye glasses winked with crystals. Her blonde hair was piled high and stuck through with a jaunty peacock feather.

And she was the one who moved first, coming at him all in a determined rush that had Harry starting so badly he sloshed chocolate on himself. She grabbed his other hand in a very firm grip. 'Rita Skeeter, _Daily Prophet_ ,' she introduced herself. 'You'll have heard of me.'

'Er, I don't think so,' Harry said.

Her overlarge grin faltered a moment. Someone behind her turned a snicker into a cough. 'Well, I'm sure we'll be good friends now,' Skeeter said then, and ruffled his hair familiarly, her rings clacking against his skull. 'Aren't you adorable? Precious little moppet. So- candid.'

'I believe the _Prophet_ itself has reported on Mr Potter's Muggle upbringing,' said the man with the fur cloak, who came at a much more sedate pace, and didn't try to shake Harry's hand, but bowed genteely. 'I am Lucius Malfoy,' he told Harry. 'Representing the school governors. Allow me to formally welcome you to Hogwarts, Mr Potter. We're all quite pleased you chose to attend our fine institution.'

'I wouldn't have gone anywhere else,' Harry replied truthfully. 'Are you... are you Draco's father?'

Mr Malfoy seemed pleased at that, and maybe a little smug that Harry had known him and not Rita Skeeter, who now wore a very fixed smile. 'I am,' he said. 'My son has written a word or two home about you.'

Harry would just bet.

The man with the bowler hat, now held to his chest, was coming forward now, and Harry rather had the impression he was supposed to get up and bow. He made an attempt at it, but the man just chuckled indulgently and waved him back, so Harry supposed he'd got that one right at least. He had chocolate all over himself for his effort, but Dumbledore aimed his wand at Harry and murmured something almost too soft for Harry to notice, and the wet stains vanished. 'And I'm Cornelius Fudge, Harry,' the man was saying, and as it happened Harry did know that name, since it was in the _Prophet_ almost as often as Harry's name. Cornelius Fudge was the Minister of Magic.

Oh. That was the first moment in which Harry realised. What had happened out in the Forest was _important_.

Something of his reaction must have shown in his face. McGonagall began the process of subtly shoving all the posh people out of the way, and the sight of her tartan and unadorned grey hair was comforting. Harry cast a thankful look up to her as she took station beside his chair, one hand resting on the high wingback above his head.

'Thank you all for coming so early,' Dumbledore said then, and took the seat behind his big desk, which sent everyone else looking for chairs of their own, most of which appeared with a pop- Harry knew by now that sound meant house elf magic, though he caught only a glimpse of tufty white ear hair, which meant Jiffy had been one of chair deliverers, and likely the one who refilled all the chocolate that had spilled from Harry's mug, since it looked just as full as before, with extra marshallows that should have melted by now piled atop the cream. His moment of distraction did him no good, however, since the adults all overlooked the elves with long practise, and Dumbledore had gone on speaking. '-decide what to do,' the Headmaster finished, and light glinted on his spectacles as he turned his head toward Harry. 'Mr Potter, would you mind another recitation of what you told myself and Professor McGonagall yesterday?'

That had been a terrible scene. Harry had waked to the sound of loud blubbering- Hagrid, carrying him in one arm and Harry's broom and wand clutched in the other barrell-like fist- and a terrible lot of fuss and bother. There had been chaos all the way to the infirmary, and Madam Pomfrey the nurse had made him drink a lot of awful-tasting potions and all the professors had come running in and talked over each other until Harry had said-

'It was the man who was looking for the stone,' Harry said again, and just like before it plunged the entire room into a silence so deep that Fawke's snore was deafening.

Dumbledore was the only one who didn't look shaken. 'And can you please explain again how you know this man was looking for a stone?'

Harry had only told the truth about this part yesterday because he'd been so tired and Madam Pomfrey's potions had made him feel very tranquil and relaxed and he hadn't thought it would cause all the bother it did. Reluctantly Harry repeated himself one more time. 'I had a dream about him,' he said. 'He was in a dark place a long way down- or I was, rather, in the dream I was there- and I was looking for a stone but the stone wasn't there. Then in the Forest I recognised his voice.'

Mr Malfoy spoke first. 'Is the child Sighted?'

'Well, I have to wear glasses to see almost anything,' Harry said, confused, and the tension in the room broke as all the adults smiled.

'Sighted, Harry,' McGonagall says softly, 'Mr Malfoy is referring to the gift of Sight. The ability to predict the future. To prophesy.'

'Me? No, ma'am.'

'Divination is a second-year subject,' said Flitwitch. 'Given our time constraints we generally leave second-year and third-year testing til that actual school year.'

'I understand,' Mr Malfoy replied courteously, though his tone was cool and not especially forgiving. 'I referred to any noted inclination, any previously reported incidents. Are your dreams frequent, Mr Potter?'

'I...' Harry very much wished he'd never brought it up. He made a note to himself to never accept a potion from Pomfrey again if he could avoid it. 'I don't think so. Really just the one.'

'Were there any strange things happening at the time of your dream, Harry?' Dumbledore asked. Like Mr Malfoy, he wasn't blinking a lot, and the intensity of his gaze was hard to meet. 'Anything odd at all?'

Harry considered lying. He didn't like to lie- and the few times he'd tried it had made it very clear he wasn't good at it- but he didn't like to share this. 'I don't know what you mean, sir,' he said, stalling for time.

'Strange pains. Sensations you have never felt before. Unexplained but vivid feelings that seemed to come from someone other than yourself.'

'You said you thought you were him, in the dream?' Skeeter prompted, looking intrigued. 'This man looking for a stone?'

'Well... not exactly. There were two of them, in the dream and in the Forest. I was the other one. But the one looking for the stone was right upset about it. And,' he said reluctantly, concluding they might well find out about it from Ron if it occurred to McGonagall to ask, and Harry could hardly ask Ron to lie for him, 'in the dream my head hurt, really awfully, and that happened again in the Forest. He touched my head and it hurt something terrible.'

Snape said, very quietly and yet very clearly, 'His scar was bleeding when Hagrid brought him back, Albus.'

Skeeter looked positively euphoric at that detail. Her hand twitched up to the feather in her hair, as if she couldn't help herself, but then she clasped her hands before her, innocent as new snow. Mr Malfoy had a decidedly odder reaction, his pale skin whitening til he looked nearly as bloodless as Professor Binns, and his hands were tightly wrapped around the silver bauble of his cane.

'The scar bled,' he said faintly, sounding dazed.

Minister Fudge cleared his throat. 'Yes, well, you said the boy was all over scratches and such. It could well have been a stray branch done him in. Confusion, fright, the poor boy can't recall it clearly, I'm sure.'

'Which of the men touched your head?' Dumbledore cut across them all, and Harry stared at him, because that tone struck ice in his chest. But Dumbledore only smiled at him, very kindly, and Harry said, 'I don't know. I couldn't see without my glasses.'

'There you have it, impossible to know, shouldn't rush to judgment, such a delicate matter.' Fudge clapped his hands, and everyone started at the sound, looking at the Minister. Except Dumbledore, who just sat looking at Harry, and Snape, who was staring at him, too.

Finally, finally, Dumbledore blinked, and Harry sagged in his chair, feeling as if a strange weight had left him. And left him exhausted. He began to tremble, so much that McGonagall rescued his cup of undrunk chocolate from him, touching the back of her hand to his forehead in concern. Harry hid his hands in his lap beneath the thick blanket.

'The rest of this can be discussed more privately,' she announced, and that set off a round of half-hearted complaints that silenced when McGonagall turned her best student-quelling glare on all of them. 'I'll return Harry to the hospital wing, and proceed to his relatives.'

That final word set off alarm bells for Harry. 'My relatives?' he echoed, nearly in time with Rita Skeeter, who was listening keenly.

McGonagall replied to him, though she was eyeing Skeeter with distaste. 'Would you like me to bring them back with me, Harry? A visit in such circumstances would not be out of order.'

'No, I- you're not- you're not going to see them?'

'You said they don't answer to owl post,' she reminded him.

He had said that. He hadn't expected it to trip him up so soon. 'I-' He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to stop this. 'Only, I don't- think- I don't think they'd like to come to Hogwarts,' he blurted.

'Why not?'

'They don't like magic.'

That was met with astonishment. 'Don't like magic?' Skeeter said. 'But you're-'

'I know,' Harry agreed hastily. 'But they don't like it. Hate it, actually. And I think it would, I think it would distress them. To have to come here.'

The adults stared about at each other the way adults did sometimes, exchanging messages with eyebrows and shrugs and negative little shakes of their heads. Harry chewed at his lower lip, before he recalled he'd bitten it clean through in the Forest and it still ached a bit. The pain only added to the urgency.

'I could just meet with them in their home, then,' McGonagall said soothingly. 'If you think that would be best. I don't think you should go there, so unfortunately you wouldn't be able to see them, but they do need to know what happened, and what we're going to do about You-Know-'

'We don't know who,' Fudge interrupted quite loudly.

McGonagall braced herself with a deep breath, and looked down at Harry. 'For your safety,' she finished.

'I just...' Harry couldn't see a way past it. 'They really won't want to talk to a Witch, Professor.' That was, he was sure, absolutely true. If they'd given Harry up, as Lupin thought, when Harry first began to show signs of possessing magic, then the Dursleys assuredly wouldn't like to be confronted by a fully grown Witch. Who would be quite surprised to arrive and find Harry hadn't been there in seven years, no less. And then the rest of it would come crashing down, he was sure, and he didn't know what they'd do but probably they'd make him come back up here to this room full of people he didn't really know and make him explain things endlessly and why he'd pretended he still lived with the Dursleys and why-

Why Lupin had thought it was a good idea to pretend they still had him. Lupin. Lupin needed to know.

Harry twisted in the chair to rise up on his knees, gesturing McGonagall near. Surprised and wary, she bent to him, and Harry cupped a hand between his mouth and her ear, and whispered, 'Do you remember me saying about my friend who keeps my secrets?' He waited for her cautious nod. 'Can you talk to him instead? Instead of my relatives? He'll know how to deal with them.'

McGonagall straightened to her full height. 'I suppose we can start there,' she agreed reluctantly. Her eyes went to Rita Skeeter, who was leaning forward as if to listen in. 'Yes, that may be wise. Very well.'

'That's all taken care of, then.' Fudge came bustling forward, and clapped Harry on the shoulder where he still knelt on the chair. 'Brave lad,' he said, 'but you stay indoors now, and mind your teachers. Let's just count ourselves lucky Sirius Black-'

'Sirius Black?'

Fudge put up both hands as if he were being attacked, though it was only Harry who'd asked a question. 'But no sign of the man, happily!'

'No,' Dumbledore agreed slowly, 'but it's clear there are, indeed, unfriendlies in the Forbidden Forest. Granted, the incident with the rogue Snitch appears to be innocent, Harry merely unfortunate enough to interrupt something which would otherwise never have involved him. Hogwarts grounds remain unviolated, but we do not have the means to expand those protections. If the governors see fit, of course, perhaps the Ministry could extend their aegis to...'

'Very wise, Headmaster,' Mr Malfoy agreed. 'Perhaps we might solicit the Ministry to provide a search party of Aurors, for instance. A sweep of the Forest would remind the inimitable Mr Black that the Ministry are after him. Since they haven't managed to catch him yet.'

Fudge shot a dark look at Malfoy. 'Yes,' he said unenthusiastically. 'Just so.'

'Come, Harry.' McGonagall drew him from the chair, supporting him with a hand under his elbow when he staggered a bit. Snape took a step toward him, and Harry flinched back. That stopped that. Harry felt a little badly, as it appeared Snape was actually worried about him, but that was confusing in and of itself. McGonagall herded him along, though, and Harry had enough to worry about.

* * *

His friends were allowed a visit that day. First was Ron and Hermione and Neville, who brought the news that everyone had been terribly worried about him but no-one knew anything other than that he'd been found at Hagrid's, asleep in the Gamekeeper's bed and battered to a bloody pulp (Ron's words). Hogwarts was absolutely awash in speculation and rumour (Hermione's words). No-one, meaning Professor McGonagall, had explicitly told Harry he couldn't share the story with his friends, so he did. Ron was all wide-eyes, Hermione cried out when he told her about the horrible pain he'd felt when the bad man touched his forehead, and Neville, kind Neville who had perched on the far end of Harry's bed as if afraid drawing attention to his presence would result in his immediate ejection from the infirmary, put his hand on Harry's ankle over the duvet and squeezed.

'So there were two of them?' Hermione probed, when he'd finished his tale. 'Oh, Harry, how awful, and that poor unicorn. You think they'd killed it?'

'I didn't see them do it, but it seems strange it would be there where they were, if it had just died, and I think it must have done.' Though there was no sign left of the unicorn's blood on Harry's hand, he thought it could still be felt, just a little bit. His hand didn't look any different, though. 'But I wish I knew who the dark man was? It must have been his beast, I think, that saved me.'

'Saved yourself, mate. Wow,' said Ron, shaking his head.

'No, I hadn't gone far when that last spell hit me. He got me out.'

All four of them were quiet a moment. Then Neville said, 'I'm really glad you're all right, Harry.'

It was strange. Harry had been on good terms with some of the boys at Crowhill, like Marcus, and sometimes Gaz, but he'd never really had friends there. Even the boys who'd been there a long time, like Harry, knew better than to get attached, because you were always going to move on, to a home or to fosters or even, like Harry, to another school. He didn't think anyone had ever actually said that to him before, that they were glad he was all right. It put a funny little croak in his voice, and something squirmy and hot in his chest. 'Thanks,' he whispered, and then Hermione hugged him and Ron patted his shoulder and Neville shook his hand, and Harry felt very warm indeed watching them go.

His next visit was from Draco, Millie, Teddy Nott, and Crabbe and Goyle- well, Draco and Millie, anyway, as Crabbe and Goyle merely grunted at Harry and made free with the Bertie Bott's beans and chocolate frogs his other friends had brought him. Harry saw immediately that the two visits had been structured in such a way as to not overlap, and was irritated by this show of Gryffindor and Slytherin hostility til it occurred to him it might actually represent a small step forward; they had seen the potential for their inevitable sniping to agitate Harry in his sick room, and had clearly come to an agreement that allowed both sides their time with him without requiring him to play referee. Harry supposed it would do, for now. That small warm glow in his belly was just a bit larger, and he rather liked that Millie gave him a hug, too, squishing his shoulderblades together- she was demonstrably stronger than Hermione- and that Draco sat on his bed where Ron had, at Harry's knees, and told him all about the Quidditch match that Harry had largely missed once he was distracted by the Snitch.

'But once they realised you'd gone missing they called a draw,' Draco finished. 'Crabbe! No! At least give Harry the card, you lout.'

'Sorry,' Crabbe grunted, clearly bored, and tossed a card into Harry's lap. Draco snatched it up a moment later.

'Nicolas Flamel,' he read. 'That one's fairly rare. I only have four or five of those. At least it's not another Dumbledore.'

'Draco has the biggest collection of chocolate frog cards in first year,' Millie told Harry. 'And it's as stupid as it sounds.'

'Hey!'

Harry smiled. 'But about the match,' he said then. 'It's not a draw. Gryffindor should lose.' He leant over for the drawer of the small bedside table. 'Careful, it's been trying to get out.' He opened the drawer just a tiny bit, and snatched the golden wings as they zipped through the small opening, feeling their way to freedom. The Snitch tugged at his hand, trying to escape, and Harry kept a hard grip on it as he showed the others. 'I caught the Snitch,' he said. 'It's a penalty, and since it ends the game, Gryffindor loses.'

'Only if you tell, idiot,' Draco pointed out. 'Give it to me.'

'Please,' Harry said.

Draco's hand stayed out. 'Well?'

'When you ask for something, you say please.'

Draco's brows slammed together. 'Are you serious?' Harry only waited, and Draco made a face like he'd swallowed one of the sour cabbage beans. 'Please,' Draco told him, drawing out the word into multiple distasteful syllables.

'Sure,' Harry said agreeably, and handed it over. 'What do you mean, only if I tell?'

'Gryffindor,' said Teddy Nott, the first word he'd spoken so far, but he grinned at Harry, and Harry grinned back.

'Draco means that as far as the game's concerned, the Snitch just wandered off,' Millie explained. 'No-one knows you've got it, do they?'

'It was in my pocket,' Harry said.

'There you go.' Draco was trying to examine the flapping golden wings. 'So the Snitch was never officially caught, Gryffindor didn't officially lose, and you'll get a rematch against Hufflepuff. And everyone will feel sorry for you, since everyone knows you're locked up in here after something dire happened to you in the Forest, and the Hufflepuffs are all soft in the head anyway, so you can bet they won't play as hard as they could against you. Which means Gryffindor will win the match, which means Slytherin will be up against Gryffindor for the Quidditch Cup, and that means Slytherin will win, obviously.'

'What about Ravenclaw?' The Slytherins laughed as if he'd made a great joke. Harry smiled, but took back the Snitch from Draco. 'I can't lie about it,' he said. 'If nothing else, they need the Snitch back to play any other matches.'

'They'll get another. After what you went through, I think you should keep it anyway.' Draco pretended to be occupied with reading the Nicolas Flamel card, but he was watching Harry through his eyelashes. 'Were you scared?' he asked.

'Yes,' Harry said honestly. 'I was sure they were going to kill me.'

'But you escaped.'

'I was saved.'

Draco waved that off the same way Ron had. His look was very intent, and now that Harry had met Draco's father he saw how alike they were, down the same mannerisms. But there was an uncertainty in Draco that wasn't there in his father, and suddenly Harry realised what it was. Draco was afraid of something, and hearing Harry say that he'd been afraid too had changed something. Changed something important.

But Harry didn't know quite what, and Draco didn't say it. Instead, Madam Pomfrey emerged from her office then, tapping significantly on the watch that hung pinned from her apron, and it was time for the Slytherins to go. Harry stuffed the Snitch under the covers and trapped it beneath his thigh. It was only instinct not to get caught doing something wrong, not agreement with Draco's plan that he should hide the Snitch forever, but Draco gave him a satisfied nod anyway and tossed the Nicolas Flamel card onto Harry's lap. 'See you, Potter,' he said.

'All right, Harry,' Millie said, and hugged him again, popping his shoulder joint, and Teddy Nott said something too soft to hear properly and Crabbe and Goyle were already lumbering out, but it was as satisfying in its own way as it had been with Ron, Hermione, and Neville. He knew they were his friends.

'Time for another potion, Mr Potter,' Madam Pomfrey said, setting out a cup and a phial with a fanciful stopper on a tin tray.

'About that,' Harry said, and settled in for an argument.

* * *

Professor McGonagall came to see Harry that evening. Despite several hours napping, Madam Pomfrey's bargain with Harry in exchange for no more potions, Harry was bleary-eyed and tired, and desperately worried about what she'd say. Would he be told to pack his things immediately and leave because he'd lied? Would she- God forbid- bring the Dursleys here? Or have them arrested by Wizard police for stealing his money all these years? He briefly entertained that fantasy, but it could only be brief, since he didn't hardly remember them, and anyway he knew better, now, what would happen in the Wizarding world if it got out Harry Potter had been abandoned by his relatives. It would be all over _The Daily Prophet_ , everything about his life, and he couldn't bear that. Would having to go home with the Dursleys be worse than that? He wasn't sure.

Consequently he was on tenterhooks when McGonagall appeared at the door of the hospital wing, dressed in a dark green travelling cloak with a tall hat of velvet roses. If she'd gone like that to Crowhill-

'Professor Lupin!' Harry cried, and scrambled up out of his bed.

Lupin caught him up in an embrace nearly as tight as Millie's. 'Harry,' he whispered, sounding choked, and carried him back to his bed and sat with him, not letting him go even a little. 'Harry, I'm so glad you're all right.'

Harry tried to tell the story all at once, and also to enjoy his new sympathy with the Snitch, which was probably used to being grabbed and clutched by someone much bigger. This was different than Hermione's hug, which had been glad, or Millie's, which had been more, he thought, like a kind of claiming. Well, maybe what Lupin was doing was closer to Millie's hug actually, but in a way that felt scared and desperate and grateful all at once, his thumb the only part of him moving, stroking the nape of Harry's neck and his heartbeat thundering against Harry's cheek.

'And then I almost fell off my broom and then I followed the Snitch only the Snitch wasn't, it wasn't returning to the game, and I thought if I could just- only I did think about what you'd said, about staying on Hogwarts grounds, I'm really sorry about that-'

'Harry.' Lupin released him a little bit- a very little bit- then pulled him in again. 'I should have warned you better. That they'd find ways to draw you out.'

'No, I don't think anyone meant to do that, really. I think I surprised them.'

'Them. Yes. Minerva explained there were two of them there?'

'Yes,' said Professor McGonagall, and she drew a chair to Harry's bedside, which seemed to be a cue to Professor Lupin to let Harry sit on his own, though he kept his hand on Harry's shoulder, and it was a warm pleasant weight that Harry decided he quite liked. Professor Lupin looked exactly as he had when Harry had left, down to the chalk mark on his sleeve, and Harry smiled spontaneously on seeing it, and that made Lupin's eyes go bright and wet. 'Two assailants,' McGonagall continued, 'and, from his description, one of them may have cast a certain Unforgiveable.'

'On Harry?' Lupin's hand tightened. 'That's monstrous.'

Harry was, by now, used to not understanding a lot of things Wizards said. He didn't know what an Unforgiveable was, or why Lupin was so shocked. But the adults were talking about him, not to him, just now, and he knew what that meant. Be silent and still. You could learn a lot more when adults forgot you were there, as opposed to when they were punishing you for interrupting to ask questions they wouldn't answer anyway.

'We are not unfamiliar with these types of people.' McGonagall said that as if it were as significant as that Unforgiveable thing. She pursed her lips, the way she did in class sometimes when a student had done something very wrong. 'I think we can guess what they believe themselves to be in service of. I don't know if I'd call it precisely surprising, but the school governors are backing Ministry patrols of the Forest. I find the murder of the unicorn very telling.'

Harry's ears perked at that news. He wondered if Hermione had already been to the library to look at books about unicorns; it was the sort of thing she'd do. If she hadn't, he'd ask her to look. He'd already discovered it was quicker to ask her to do the reading and synthesise it all for him, like a verbal essay. And maybe he'd find out if it meant anything that he'd touched the unicorn's blood. He hadn't asked the teachers yet, sensing it would land him in the hospital wing for far longer than a few Stupefies.

'Yes,' Lupin said thoughtfully. 'Yes, unicorn blood is a powerful component, especially when taken unwillingly- that can increase its potency in certain Dark spells or potions. I suppose Severus Snape has already made that point?'

'He has. It didn't fall on deaf ears. But I don't know that the presence of a few Aurors will deter their hunting.'

Harry felt a wash of sick. Maybe he should tell about the blood after all. He didn't want anything Dark to happen... he stared at his hand, wondering if it were only his imagination that it looked maybe a little paler than the other one, his fingernails a little longer?

'No, I doubt a few Aurors would deter much of anything,' Lupin murmured. His hand brushed through Harry's hair. 'Which is why we shouldn't focus on deterring, but trapping. Will Albus call the Order?'

'Lupin! The boy.'

'Minerva, I have found that boys who are underinformed will make all manner of clandestine attempts to get their own information, and that's the surest recipe for disaster in this case. If Harry doesn't understand the danger, he can't avoid it, as has been amply demonstrated.' Lupin abruptly included Harry in their conversation- or, Harry realised, just acknowledged that Harry had been there all along, listening closely. Harry jolted, but Lupin only smiled. 'Harry, you recall what I told you about Death Eaters-'

'Lupin!' McGonagall sounded absolutely scandalised.

'Minerva,' Lupin replied courteously, and went on as before. 'It would be sensible to assume the two Wizards you encountered in the Forest are Death Eaters, and it would be equally sensible to believe that if they're risking coming so near the school, it would be because of you. If Albus has no intention of calling the Order, Minerva, then someone else should. The school must be protected. Harry must.'

McGonagall glanced toward the door. Her hands curled over the arms of her chair, forefingers tapping. 'And calling the Order to Hogwarts would give you a reason to be near Harry. A reason I have yet to have fully explained to me. Does Albus know?'

Lupin lifted his head grimly. 'There are two possible scenarios,' he said. 'One: Albus knows about the Dursleys. And did nothing. Two: Albus doesn't know. Because he never did do anything, even when he should have.'

McGonagall put up a hand quickly. 'No accusations. I want facts. Now, I never wanted Mr Potter with his relatives- they were the worst sort of Muggles, that was plain. But the blood wards-'

'Yes, Albus made that argument to me when I first started to enquire after Harry's whereabouts. And I will tell you what I told him: I find that argument deeply flawed.'

'Professor?' Both heads turned toward him. 'Er,' Harry said, small-voiced. 'Only, what are blood-'

'Wards,' Lupin repeated, more mildly. He resumed stroking Harry's hair. 'Harry. Your mother, Lily, was a very talented Witch. I'm sure by now you've been told her specialty was Charms? Well, you won't have had much instruction in this yet, but NEWT-level Charms are quite complex and the study of them can range into very esoteric magicks. Your mother had a particular interest in ancient blood magic. It's an area that verges on Dark, and is also used in advanced Healing and Defence Against the Dark Arts, to counter the worst curses. I say all this so that you understand this is rare, and the studies your mother pursued are not easy to replicate. And, given that your parents were living in hiding after your birth, we have no way of replicating what she did to protect you, but we know that she was using all her might to do just that. Even up to the moment she died.'

Harry glanced at his wand. His mother's wand, there on the bedside table.

'All the signs pointed toward a blood ward casting,' Lupin said. 'That much of Albus' reasoning I agree with. But not that Lily would have bound that ward to Harry's living blood relatives.'

'It's the only known application of that kind of charm, Remus,' Minerva said.

'Only _practised_ ,' Lupin stressed. 'It's not logical, Minerva. Why bind Harry to Petunia Dursley, a woman Lily hadn't spoken to in a decade? Why bind Harry to a house he'd never been to, a family he wouldn't know, a family who had more than advertised their distrust of and distaste for Wizarding society? How could Lily even guarantee that her sister would take Harry? It wasn't in the will, and Lily wasn't the sort to leave a detail that important unplanned.'

'Albus thought-'

'Thought, _thought_ , Minerva. _Thought_ that she might not have put it in the will in case it drew attention to her Muggle sister's existence, fine, that's decent reasoning, but it doesn't obviate the other reasons to think otherwise. And none of this changes that Harry hasn't been with the Durselys since he was four and hasn't been found, whether Dumbledore knew about it or not, but all those things tell me that Lily bound the ward to _Harry's_ blood, and no other.'

Minerva McGonagall looked very troubled by this. She looked at Harry more than she looked at Lupin, and her brows were drawn and unhappy. Her forefingers were still tapping.

What seemed a long time later, she said, 'Mr Potter, you understand now, I trust, that you cannot leave Hogwarts grounds? Whatever binds your blood wards, they may well protect you long enough to escape, as they did this time in the Forest. But-'

'Yes, Professor.'

'I'll speak to Albus about the Order,' she said then, to Lupin. 'But I think your judgment of him is clouded by your personal attachment to- all this.'

'Will you attempt to balance my bias by revealing our relationship?'

She looked at Harry, who sat tensely. 'Not at this time,' she said evenly. 'But only because Mr Potter is here at Hogwarts and the time for a decision on this matter is seven months away. Then, a decision will have to be made about where Mr Potter is best- is most safely- sheltered, and I will want rather more detail between then and now. And, not least, because the _Prophet_ has made its obsession with Mr Potter very clear, and I see the worth in a little deception. That Rita Skeeter has already wormed her way in on Fudge's coattails and I don't doubt in the least she'll find her way back.'

'Skeeter? The gossip columnist?'

'Fancies herself an investigative journalist, when the mood takes her. Mr Potter would tempt a more ethically minded woman than that.' She hesitated, and stood. 'Unfortunately I can't give you long together, Mr Potter, if you wish this deception to continue. Make the most of it. And then rest, so you can resume your classes tomorrow.'

Lupin moved to McGonagall's chair when she had left them. 'Harry, listen to me. You remember that I promised you wouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys? I will prevent it, I swear that.'

Harry blew out a shaky breath. 'I believe you.'

Lupin seemed momentarily overcome. He nodded one too many times, and took Harry's hands between his. 'When I heard,' he began, hoarsely, and didn't finish. 'I didn't do enough for you.'

'It was my stupid idea, sir-'

'No, no, not in the least. I don't mean- I mean don't do that again, obviously, even if there weren't Death Eaters littering the Forest, it's still forbidden to students for all manner of dangerous creatures and ancient enchantments-'

That reminded Harry, and even given Lupin's obvious upset- exactly because of Lupin's obvious upset- Harry realised he had to tell the truth. He swallowed, and said, 'Professor? There was someone else there. I haven't told the other teachers because, well, mostly because they keep interrupting when I'm telling the story, but I'm also just not sure... I guess I'm just not sure at this point I didn't imagine it, except for one thing. I don't know how I'd've got away if he hadn't been there, and the beast.'

Lupin blinked rapidly at this news. 'Who, Harry? A beast?'

'I'd lost my glasses, that's what started the entire mess, anyway I couldn't see for beans, but there a beast that came out of the woods and saved me from the bad men. And I tried to run, and they knocked me out again with a spell, but when I woke up there was a dark man with me-' Lupin clearly wanted to interrupt, but held it in manfully. 'And he's how I got to Hagrid's hut, I couldn't even've walked there on my own because I was uncushioned-'

A little spasm of a smile crossed Lupin's face. 'Unconscious, Harry.'

'Right, that. He carried me. And he was...' Harry didn't know quite how to describe it. 'He was really nice to me. Like you are. I thought... well. I thought I was dead, and he was there to... you know.'

'Harry,' Lupin said, with barely any volume, and it was his hands that spasmed this time, seizing hard on Harry's.

'And he said he was a friend. Oh, and he said not to trust my professor.'

'Which one?'

'Er... I don't actually think he said.'

'Do you remember anything about this man? I know under the circumstances it would be extraordinarily difficult, but- when he was carrying you, did you feel high or low from the ground?'

Harry considered that. 'I think he had to duck a little to get the doorknob, and it's Hagrid's place so for me it's a big reach up.'

'Excellent. Excellent detail, Harry. Do you recall if he had any unusual features? Light or dark skin, hair?'

'Long hair,' Harry said, that he did remember quite clearly. 'Long dark hair.'

'Anything else? Close your eyes. Think about how you felt, about the smells in Hagrid's hut, the light or darkness of it.'

Harry obeyed. He remembered being scared, and being sleepy and then being warm in Hagrid's huge bed, and feeling safe. Feeling safe.

And the man had stroked his hair, and on his hand had been- 'A tattoo,' Harry said.

'A tattoo,' Lupin repeated. 'A snake? In a figure like this?' He traced an outline on his sleeve.

'No,' Harry said, 'no, not like the Death Eater tattoo you told me about. It was stars, stars on one of the fingers, all down the back of his hand.'

'Stars,' Lupin said faintly.

'Yes, sir. I can see better close-up, and when he touched me-'

'He _what?_ '

'Not- in a bad way,' Harry hastened to assure him. 'Just, you know. And he, um-' His cheeks heated. 'He kissed my forehead.'

'Kissed your forehead. Harry.' Lupin went through a couple of tics in rapid order, shaking his head, shaking Harry's hands, blinking a lot, almost saying something and then holding it in, and then deciding to say it again but taking a big breath first. He said, 'Harry, do you think this was Sirius Black?'

'The one who escaped from the prison?' Harry had not thought of that. 'But- why would he- why would he save me and, you know?'

'Harry.' Maybe saying Harry's name a lot was another tic, but Lupin clapped down on the last one and sat with his mouth closed for a long minute. Then, quietly and clearly, he said, 'Harry. You may not readily forgive this, and I couldn't blame you in the least, but there is something I haven't told you about your parents that you need to know. Connected, not incidentally, to the disagreement I was having earlier with Professor McGonagall about why I don't believe your mother's blood ward would have been tied to your aunt. There was a will, as I believe I mentioned. And it did have provisions for your care should you- should you need it. During school- no. Well. Yes, during school, your father was, had, there were four of us, you see, four of us who were good friends, best friends, well. Your father was closest to a boy he'd met on the train first year, and who later lived with- I'm putting it off. Sirius Black, Harry. Sirius Black was your father's best friend, in school, and after it, and he was named your Godfather when you were born, and he was your father's choice to take you in if anything happened to your parents, but for obvious reasons-'

'He... was a Death Eater, you said.' Harry pulled away, pulled his knees to his chest. 'He was... a Death Eater, which means he... he betrayed them. My mum and dad.'

'He did. Profoundly.'

'Then- why? Why save me?'

'I don't know,' Lupin said frankly. 'But it makes me think I'm missing something very significant. Crucial, even. Crucial- Harry, it's crucial you remain inside the Castle as much as possible. Quidditch is all right, the pitch is within the wards, but you should have Minerva show you on a map exactly where the line is, and stay well away from it. And I will damn well have the Order here by tomorrow morning, pardon my language.'

'Professor?'

'Yes, Harry?'

'It's all just.' Harry rubbed his chin against the soft denim over his knees. 'It's all just rather a lot. It's not that I miss Crowhill, exactly, but I sort of wish, I just sort of wish-'

'Would you rather I had never told you?' Lupin nodded. 'It's all right to feel that. Even to feel it one moment and not the next. I know you wouldn't give up knowing about your mother and father, or even give up being a Wizard, but it's still all right to wish for a time that was easier.'

'You won't tell anyone?'

'I won't tell anyone.' Lupin cleared his throat and stood. 'But for the moment I'm going to go locate a large number of people I haven't seen in several years. When you see me again, it may be wise not to react as if you know me? Minerva will keep it private, I think, til she's had time to think things through, and I trust she'll inform you first if she means to tell Dumbledore about your living situation. If you think of anything more to tell me, you can keep writing me letters. That should keep it fairly private.'

'You don't think the Death Eaters would track my owls? Or the _Prophet?_ '

Lupin swayed to a stop. 'Well, that's a terrifying thought. Harry, I will do better.'

'It's all right. Just, how to-'

'Have a friend post your letters, I think. We'll start with that, and I'll think of something else. Better.' Lupin ran a hand over his face. 'Oh, better. Rest. You should rest.'

'I will. I am. Professor- it was good to see you.'

Lupin looked back from the door. For a moment, his smile was deep and tender. 'And you, Harry. Very much so.'

Harry removed his glasses and set them aside. He tucked his wand, his mother's wand, under his pillow, and slid his hand after it to clutch the handle. He wouldn't so much as go for a pee without it, he swore to himself, not ever again. But his other hand tucked down to the pocket of his jeans. The Snitch was still there, fluttering every once in a while, but apparently content with a dark warm hiding spot. Harry did want to keep it, not because Gryffindor would get a re-match, but because, well- just because. Because of the same reason he'd wanted to keep some of the money from his vault even though he wasn't going to use it. Because he'd never really had things, and he thought he rather liked having things. His own special things.

He had a Godfather. He didn't know how to feel about that, except confused and not entirely happy, but he had a Godfather, and his Godfather had kissed him on the forehead, and he didn't know how to feel about it at all.

Harry closed his eyes determinedly, and told himself to go to sleep.


	8. Stevie Nicks

_In Which Love And War Come Perilously Near In A Confined Space._

'Heard it w-was quite the s-scare,' stuttered Professor Quirrell.

'Yes, sir,' replied Harry.

'Also h-heard you w-w-w-' He was extra stuttering today, Harry thought with pity, really chewing up his words, as if talking to one of his students was the most stammer-inducing activity he could dream of. He could hardly look Harry in the eye. 'W-were quite the s-s-succ- success with your sp-spellwork.'

'Oh.' Harry hadn't been entirely sure that anyone other than the Heads of the Houses had heard the entire story; he'd rather been under the impression they were going to keep it quiet, actually. 'Er, I don't know about success, sir.'

'Nonsense. A b-boy of eleven against a full-grown wiz-' Quirrell sucked in a deep breath. 'Wizard. Astonishing.'

'I guess I'm just right glad we did the shield spell so early in the term,' Harry said, and Quirrell nodded vigorously.

'Ind-indeed, ind-deed. To the p-point. My point. I w-would. Like to. P-rovide. Tooting.' Deep red suffused Quirrell's face. 'Tutoring. For you, P-potter.'

'Tutoring?' Harry had never had tutoring before, except when older students were assigned to help the younger at Crowhill. Harry hadn't been good enough at any subject to tutor anyone else, nor poor enough at anything to need it himself. Still, he thought, maybe there was something to this. Even if he were meant to never leave Hogwarts grounds, there were all sorts of reasons he'd want to know more spells. 'Oh,' Harry said then. 'Only I've got Quidditch practise twice weekly and on Saturdays, is that a problem?'

'No, no. We'll wo-work round it.' Quirrell beamed at him in relief, still red as a Quaffle, with a slight sheen of sweat dampening the silk rim of his turban. 'Excellent. Well, onto c-class. Ta-ta.'

'What was that about?'

It was Draco. Who had taken to shamelessly eavesdropping on Harry, evidently, even if it meant following Harry between classes. Draco was alone, which was unusual in itself, as he was typically accompanied by Crabbe and Goyle at the least- Millie had told Harry they got lost when Draco didn't lead them to classes, even though most first years had been at Hogwarts long enough now to learn their most common routes.

'Extra revision,' Harry said, seeing no harm in honesty.

Draco reacted as if Harry had said something quite incomprehensible, but he always did when Harry talked, so that wasn't worth slowing down. Draco tripped at his heels as Harry slipped back through the big doors and into the throng of students coming in for luncheon. Before Harry could head to the Gryffindor table, however, Draco leant in and seized Harry's arm. 'No, sit with us,' he said, and hauled Harry along without consideration he might say no or might have left his bag sitting with Ron, amongst other issues, but Harry didn't argue. The same food was at all the tables, after all, and Harry didn't much mind where he sat so long as he got fed. He allowed Draco to cram them in with a group of first year Slytherins at the tail end of their table, first by ordering Crabbe and Goyle to budge up and then by taking advantage of the hush that fell over the rest of his House to grab a plate of sandwiches for their own especial choice. 'Tarragon chicken or chicken tikka masala?' he asked Harry.

'Tarragon, please.'

Word passed down the table in a flow of whispers. Harry was eating the tarragon. Every other tarragon sandwich on the table vanished as students made a grab for them. Harry sighed.

Draco was quite pleased with himself for taking a tikka masala, quite pointedly bucking the trend, though Harry still favoured him with an eyeroll because he could tell what Draco was doing. 'I wish they wouldn't do that,' Harry muttered, accepting the pitcher of pumpkin juice from Blaise Zabini and selecting an apple from the bowl, since there were more apples in evidence than anything else and he wouldn't inadvertently beggar Hogwarts in the rush on whatever fruit he preferred today. Word had passed to the Ravenclaws, seated nearest the Slytherins, and there was a loud disagreement in process over the last tarragon chicken. 'It's humiliating,' Harry said, turning rather Quaffle-red himself as a triumphant Ravenclaw third year waved a sandwich at him.

'It's humiliating for them, not you,' Draco said. 'You're not the one making an ass of himself.'

'I suppose.' Harry picked at the crusts. Now he had his food, he wasn't sure he was actually hungry. 'Do you think they'll ever get over it?'

Draco munched thoughtfully on a carrot. 'Don't know,' he mused. 'Probably not. You'd have to stop doing anything interesting for ever.'

'I haven't done anything at all interesting since I've got here!'

'You're an overnight Quidditch star, you're tops in Defence and Charms, you're making a stink about being friends with a Mud- Muggleborn, and Slytherins for that matter, and now you've gone and fought a Dark wizard in the Forbidden Forest.'

'Didn't even play the entire match, there's only even been one test in Charms, I'm not making a stink about anything, and I think whoever that was in the Forest was-'

'Was what?' Teddy Nott asked, wide-eyed.

When Harry didn't answer, Draco only shrugged. 'Well the _Prophet_ thinks you're the best thing since self-slicing bread, so I reckon it'll get worse before it gets better. If you hate it so much, learn to use it for important things, at least.'

That was an idea with some intrigue to it. 'What do you mean, learn to use it?'

'Famous people always have some kind of charity or cause. So rich people know where to give their money or what to vote for or who to care about.' Draco took a bite of his sandwich, eyeing Harry sideways as he chewed. 'If you didn't like Cornelius Fudge you could back someone else for Minister.'

Harry scoffed at this. 'Like who?'

'Celestina Warbeck,' cracked Pansy Parkinson, and the sickly looking blonde girl next to her snickered too, and then a flood of suggestions was coming from all quarters.

'Ludo Bagman!'

'Dumbledore, obviously!'

'Dumbledore's batty, and anyway he already turned it down.'

'Ludo Bagman!'

'Draco's dad,' said Teddy.

'Draco's mum.'

' _Your_ mum!'

'Padraig Toole, he's _so_ dreamy.'

'If you're going to back a Quidditch player, Potter, at least back a good one. Edric Vosper, that kick he does for the Rowntree Counter-'

'Back me!' said Millicent, and everyone dissolved into giggles.

Harry grinned at Millie. 'Well I don't know who any of those people are except you and Draco's dad,' he said. 'But after what the _Prophet_ said about me and goblins I think I'm best out of politics altogether.'

'Oh, but you should learn,' Parkinson told him earnestly. 'It would be really big news if you did endorse someone. And that's how you get favours and things. People will always want to give you things to have your name down for them.'

'It would be clever, Harry,' Draco said quietly. 'You could do with an ally in the Ministry. Someone to protect your interests.'

It was rather disturbing to realise Ron might have been correct about this. Harry was most definitely not hungry now. 'I haven't got any interests,' he said, and with the fun gone out of his tone everyone went silent and chastened. 'I just want to go to class and not have people after me for stupid things all the time. Scuse me, I need to get my bag before Potions.' His departure was met with low murmurs and worried looks, and Harry wavered. 'See you all there?' he asked, though really it was useless to pretend they'd be able to keep talking in Potions, with Harry still sat in the back alone. But his overture earned him relieved smiles, and Harry returned them with an uneasy lift of his own lips. It was exhausting, having to worry how everyone felt all the time. He didn't like having a responsibility that big, knowing he was bound to say something hurtful by accident or ignorance sooner than later.

He was still dwelling on the matter as he followed Ron through the castle to the dungeons. Ron chattered away about Quidditch- he was of the opinion, like Draco, that Hufflepuff would go easy on Gryffindor for a rematch, and, just like Draco, thought Harry should take advantage of it. Harry gave noncommittal grunts. Oliver Wood had been mentally ravaged by Gryffindor's loss, as he called it, and had only been kept from Harry's sickbed, Ron said Fred had told him, because he was at the drawing board revising all of Gryffindor's plays again. Harry had attended Thursday's emergency practise and been accosted with a variety of sticking charms that plastered his glasses to his face so thoroughly he hadn't even got them off to sleep or shower, and they were now in desperate need of a good cleaning. Ron was no use at all, and stood by snickering as Harry bumped into a statute of Horace Whittaker the Wish-Maker and apologised at length before realising it wasn't actually a person he was talking to. Harry gave Ron a shove, Ron tumbled into Neville, and Neville tumbled into what Harry thought was another statue until it spoke in Professor Snape's most dour tones: 'Two points, Mr Potter, for violence in the halls.'

That was all he needed. Harry sagged. 'Yes, sir,' he told the tall black blob, and Ron grabbed his elbow to steer him into the classroom.

But- 'A moment, Potter,' said Snape, and Neville vanished indoors with a squeak, and Ron lingered only til Snape added silkily, 'However much you obviously wish it, Weasley, you have no connection to Mr Potter that warrants your presence at a discussion between he and I.' Ron did not squeak as he went, but he moved along at a good clip, nonetheless.

'Mr Potter,' Snape began. Then stopped. He folded his arms over his chest the way he did when he was building up to a good tongue-lashing. 'Look me in the eye, boy, when I speak to you.'

'I was trying-' No, Snape hated backtalk. Harry shut himself up and stared at the outline of Snape's head, dark hair around a white blur of a face, and hoped the eyes were somewhere in the middle of that.

Maybe not, for Snape seemed to stare back for a rather long time. 'Your spectacles,' he said at last.

'Sir?'

'Give them to me.' Snape put out a hand.

'Er... I can't,' Harry said. 'Fred and George Weasley both had a go at them, and I can't get them off now.'

Snape's irritated huff seemed to come from the soles of his boots. He pointed at Harry, who only belatedly realised that point included a wand, and he didn't have time to flinch before Snape issued a brisk ' _Finite Incantem_ ' at Harry's face. With a relieved little clink, his glasses slid down his nose.

'Oh, thank you,' Harry said, grabbing them off immediately and scraping at the lenses with his tie.

'Potter!'

'Oh. Right.' Harry extended them, blinking owlishly. Snape was even blurrier now, and Harry's guess was off by a country mile. Snape plucked his glasses out of his hand from well to the left. Harry tucked his hands behind his back.

Whatever Snape was doing with Harry's glasses, they came back to him a moment later unchanged, so far as he could tell. Harry finished polishing them off, and jabbed them back over his ears. Snape said, 'May I presume your abysmal performance in my classroom is due to your inability to read the board, Mr Potter?'

Harry hedged on that one. 'In part,' he replied cautiously. The other six or seven parts had to do with being banished to the back of the class to sit alone without a desk and being hollered at by the teacher, of course.

'Your spectacles would appear to be inadequate to your needs. I suggest you inform your relatives.'

'I... don't know what they could do about it, sir.'

'Don't cheek me, child. They could provide you an updated prescription from a Muggle optometrist.'

'Is that like an eye doctor?'

Snape had his arms folded again. 'It is, in fact, very like an eye doctor. When is the last time you received a proper checkup?'

'When I was eight they had in a-' Harry stopped himself. 'My school had in a man from the NHS who looked at our eyes and our ears and our spines and all. Nothing since then, I guess.'

The bell saved him further interrogation. 'Inside,' Snape said, grumpy now, probably for missing his chance at a grand entrance as he was stuck in the hall chatting up Harry. 'You will sit with Miss Granger for today. One unsolicited word out of you, Potter, and I will end that arrangement. And I expect a much improved product from you today.'

'Yes, sir.' Harry hopped a little in excitement. 'Thank you, sir, really, thank you for-'

' _Go_ , Potter.'

'Yes, sir.'

That wasn't the end to surprises in Potions. Harry squeezed in at Hermione's table- she was effusive, if quiet, in her welcome, generously clearing off a good five inches of space for him to set out his notebook, and Harry, mindful of Snape's warning, gave her a close-mouthed smile and nod in return. Snape swept in after Harry and took a full round through the class to get his robes properly billowing out behind him, snatched a tube of lipgloss from Lavender Brown and a chocolate frog from Gregory Goyle and marched up to the board, where he wrote out the day's assignment in- Harry couldn't help another smile- in writing much larger and clearer than he had before, not the crabbed cursive that gave Harry so much trouble in the margins of his essays. Snape would have found out about his glasses when he'd found them on the Quidditch pitch, sure, but thinking of his handwriting? That was- nice. Professor Snape was being nice.

'Open your books to Chapter One page seventeen,' Snape told them, which was just what he'd written on the board, and Harry had to pinch his lips together with his teeth to keep from smiling even more. 'Today we will be examining the efficacy of various cutting tools and techniques which you are required to perfect before you will be allowed to mangle any expensive ingredients. Parkinson, pass these out. These are wooden dowels. Do not lose them, do not lob them at each other, do not pick various facial orifices with them, Crabbe, they are for use in practise at your desks and I will require you to hand them in no worse for wear at the end of class. Yes?'

This sharply punctuated question was directed at the door, where a brisk knock had just interrupted. Harry, like everyone else, twisted on his stool to look at the door. A woman stood there, wearing a chunky men's suit in twill over a tie-dye camisole that revealed- Harry felt his eyes widen and his face heat- revealed quite a lot more of full round breasts than it concealed, and a long white graceful swoop of collarbone and neck and- blushing, Harry yanked his eyes up to her face, to find her looking back at him. She winked, and so much blood raced to Harry's head that he thought he would faint from it. And to top it off she had spunky hair in bright pink that tumbled over warm brown eyes. She was the prettiest woman he'd ever seen.

I, Harry thought, marking the moment in his mind, am in love.

'Here to observe, Professor,' the lady said, and even her voice was perfect, lower than the voices of all the girls in school, with an efficient edge of professionalism like the teachers but a bit of fun lurking in it, too, like she was right on the verge of smiling. At Snape! She must be wonderfully brave.

Or suicidal. Snape looked deeply put out by this. But he ground his jaws together audibly and pointed her to the stool Harry had used to sit in, at back. Harry was deeply disappointed, suddenly, in Snape's moving him to the desk in front. If he'd gone on hating Harry indiscriminately for just a day longer, Harry could have sat by the beautiful woman all lesson. She was already hopping onto the stool, crossing her legs so that one boot jounced in the air, showing off the bright blue laces and puffy paint marker that decorated the black leather.

'Page seventeen,' Snape said icily, and Harry whipped his head round to where it was supposed to be and hurriedly flipped his pages.

'She can't be another teacher,' Hermione whispered, and Harry could only shrug mutely.

Potions had always dragged, but it was especially torturous now. Snape had lost what little good mood he'd started with, and took points with abandon all afternoon, even from Slytherins, which almost never happened, although it was only Crabbe and Goyle, both of whom had managed to destroy their dowels within the hour. They spent the entire lesson learning to cut at angles, discussing in excruciating detail the difference between mincing and dicing, drew diagrams of julienne strips versus chopped lengths, and executing practise slices on page nineteen which was just a large ruler with different measurements marked off. It was dreadfully dull and Harry could not help but think resentfully that he could have done it from the back without a desk if it meant he'd get to sit by the lady- who began chewing gum about halfway through the class and peeling the ragged varnish on her long fingernails, gloriously indifferent to Snape's glares whenever she popped a bubble. Harry knew because he spent as much time as possible sneaking glances over his shoulder at her.

But at last the bell rang to release them, and Harry shot to his feet to pack his books away and return his dowel and hand in his diagram for marking. He had no sooner dumped it on the table than he streaked across the classroom, zooming around a clump of boys who were no better than breathing obstacles, and there was the quite extraordinary sight of Millie asking Hermione something across the invisible barrier which kept Slytherins on one side of the class and Gryffindors on the other, but Harry left that mystery for later. He wanted to meet-

Snape beat him there. His professor was stood with an unusually set expression, and though Harry had rocked to a halt only a few feet away, Harry couldn't at all hear what they were saying to each other. There was a low buzz drowning them out, like the sound you got that was half a feeling in your jaw and half a drone in your ear when you stood too near a boombox. Harry rubbed at his neck. Snape took a glance downward, spotted Harry there, and abruptly the buzz vanished.

'-vie Nicks,' said the woman, and Snape cleared his throat pointedly. She looked about, and grinned to find Harry there. 'Heyas, cutie.'

Harry flushed with pleasure. 'Hi,' he whispered, suddenly shy, squirming and fiddling with the strap of his pack.

'Sitting right up front, are ya? Good student. I was always in back with the troublemakers.'

'I recall,' Snape said frostily. 'You still hold the record for most destroyed cauldrons in a single year, Miss Tonks.'

Miss Tonks. Her name was Miss Tonks. 'I'm Harry,' Harry blurted.

Miss Tonks laughed. 'Reckon there's no-one left in the Wizarding world who doesn't know that.' She put her hand in his hair and gave it a good rub, like Rita Skeeter had or Lupin, which was excruciatingly awful, because it meant she saw him as a little boy, a kid barely out of his nappies, and also excruciatingly wonderful, so he stood there straining into it and trying to look above it, but not so above it he was put out about it. It was over far too soon, and he self-consciously smoothed his hair down where he could feel it standing up worse than usual.

'Are you, um.' He coughed to clear the frog in his throat. 'Are you a new teacher, Miss Tonks?'

'Close. Teacher's assistant.' Snape did something weird with his face, like he was holding in a sneeze, his eyes not quite rolling up. 'You can just call me Tonks, ole Professor Snape here's the only one who ever calls me Miss, and we all know he doesn't mean it in the proper way.' Her grin was sly and cheerful.

'Harry.' It was Draco, edging up on them. He had a strange look, too, like Snape's sneeze face but colder. 'Don't you have Quidditch practise now? I'll go out with you. I want to watch you fly.'

'You play Quidditch, Harry?' Tonks asked.

'Draco too,' Harry said, adding with suavely casual modesty, 'We're second string players for our House teams.'

'Wowzer, that's an accomplishment for a first year. Draco? That wouldn't be Draco Malfoy, would it?' Tonks levelled her lovely smile at Draco; Harry did his best not to begrudge it. 'Now I'm looking for it I don't know how I missed it! You look just like your mum.'

'Nymphadora,' Snape said warningly, but whatever he was warning about went unheeded.

'Not that I've ever met Auntie Narcissa, but her picture, anyway,' Tonks said brightly. 'You know we're cousins? Your Aunt Andromeda's my mum.'

Draco looked like he'd got caught with a Freezing Charm. His face was positively immobile and he was very pale but for two spots of red high in his cheeks. 'Let's go, Harry.'

'Aw, look, I know you've probably heard a lot of rubbish growing up about all that business, but that's our parents, not us,' Tonks said. She put out her hand to Draco. 'You n'me don't have to play those sorts of silly games. Be friends, Draco?'

Harry thought later he must've felt it coming, because he discovered his wand was in his hand, and it had been in his pocket before because no-one needed wands in Potions. Tonks had just touched her hand to Draco's hair, giving it a good mussing, when Draco flinched back so severely that even Snape jumped. 'Don't touch me, you filthy Mudblood,' Draco gasped, smacking her hand away.

Hurt flashed over Tonks's face. 'Sorry,' she said, stepping back immediately. 'Sorry, I didn't mean- sorry.'

Snape drew himself up. 'Don't make me take points, young man.'

Harry was appalled. At Draco for saying something so awful, at Snape for taking points from Harry for roughhousing in the corridor and not for something that vile. Worst of all, there were still several students lingering in the classroom, and Draco had been loud enough for all of them to hear him say that. Everyone was staring at them, now, and at Harry, waiting for him to react. It was just like that moment at lunch, when they'd all been looking at Harry, and he had to put it right. If he didn't say something now, they'd all think he was okay with it because he was friendly with Draco. Hermione was one of the students who'd stayed behind, always a little later than the others because it took so long to pack up all her things, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears and begging Harry to make it better somehow. Seamus and Dean were gaping, and Teddy Nott was whispering to Blaise Zabini, and they were all looking at Harry.

Harry took a hard swallow, and said, 'Draco. You can't be my friend if you talk like that.' There. The Gryffindors were quite vindicated, Ron nodding vigorously, and the Slytherins troubled, Millie biting her lip and Goyle frowning so deeply his monobrow had doubled over itself above his nose.

The red in Draco's cheeks vanished. He breathed in and out, twice, and then, low and vicious, he hissed, 'As if I'd want to be friends with a Muggle lover, _Potter_. He stole the Snitch, Professor.'

Snape opened his mouth, then put two fingers to his forehead. 'Detention,' he said. 'Both of you. My apologies, Miss Tonks. I assure you my students will observe proper classroom etiquette in future.'

Tonks managed a queasy-looking smile. She didn't say anything at all.

'Out,' Snape barked, and stood like a black stone obelisk as all the students present stampeded the door as if their tails were on fire. 'Not you, Potter, Malfoy. I have a pantry full of sixth-year cauldrons you can begin scrubbing immediately.'

Harry bit back a groan. More scrubbing. 'I have Quidditch practise,' Harry began, but Snape just levelled a long look at him, and Harry gave it up immediately. He glared at Draco, who glared back at him, sullen and icy and with his nose in the air as if Harry were a bad smell. 'Priss,' Harry muttered.

'Prat,' Draco bit out back at him.

'By all means, make it worse on yourselves,' Snape said ominously. 'I hope the virtue of hard work and a missed meal will remind you both of your better manners. If not, I believe Argus Filch still has his paddle.'

'No sir,' Harry said hastily. 'Er, yes sir.' He dropped his bag at the nearest desk and hurried to the pantry. Draco came stumping after him, radiating fury, and elbowed Harry out of the way when he lingered at the door, but Tonks had slipped out already, anyway.

* * *

'Stevie Nicks,' Harry said.

Draco glanced up, probably only on autopilot, as it was getting quite late and they had been in silence together for hours now. The only sounds were the steel wool scraping at the congealed mess in the big pewter cauldrons. Harry didn't know what sixth year Potions students got up to in class, but it was disgusting.

'Who's Stevie-' Draco began, and cut himself off. He attacked his latest cauldron with renewed energy, which, Harry noticed, flagged after a few good swishes of his rag.

'Stevie Nicks. From the radio?' Harry dripped a bit of water into the sludge at the bottom of a cauldron tinged orange with whatever had been in it. 'Professor Lu- um, Lewis, a teacher at my old school, he has all her cassettes.'

'Caskets?' Draco couldn't seem to help himself talking to Harry, til he remembered he was, actually, talking to Harry instead of ignoring him as obviously as possible. He put his nose back into the air so high he probably couldn't see the bottom of his cauldron. 'More Muggle nonsense.'

'It's-' Not, Harry had been about to say, but it occurred to him then that it was, as it happened. It was Muggle. If Miss Tonks was a half-blood like Harry or a Muggleborn like Hermione, it wasn't so strange she'd been talking about Stevie Nicks, but it was definitely strange she'd been talking about Stevie Nicks with Professor Snape, who was as un-Muggle as you could get, and under the protection of one of those spells that tuned out noise. But Harry was sure that's what he'd heard her say. 'It's music,' he said. 'Cassettes are- well, that's too hard to explain, and I haven't got any to show you, but they play music so you can carry it with you in a walkman or the car. Stevie Nicks is a singer.'

'I don't care, Potter.'

'I know. I s'pose that's what I'm onto.' Harry sat back on his heels to wipe his sweaty forehead. Draco took a rest, too, grimacing at the grime on his hands and taking reluctant peeks at Harry across the pantry. 'You don't like Muggle things,' Harry said. 'You don't like Muggles. And I was thinking that if you were raised that way, it's not really your fault.'

Draco raised his head enough to eye Harry from the side. 'You're not mad at me?'

'Not now,' Harry said truthfully. His temper flared hot but burnt out quickly, and he'd stopped being angry around the time his empty stomach started distracting him. 'And, I reckon I should apologise. I shouldn't have said what I did, specially in front of everyone. Using my- my Harry Potterness like that.'

'It was just a fight with another kid,' Draco said. 'It probably won't make it above the fold in the _Prophet_.' He managed to meet Harry's eyes, with a tentative uplift of the corners of his mouth.

Harry didn't return his smile, though. He'd thought this through carefully, about how he wanted to say this now they had the privacy, with Professor Snape on the other side of the pantry door doing his marking in the classroom and no-one else to hear them say the important things. Harry said it just as he'd practised in his head for the last hour. 'But I really don't think we can be friends, if you think what you think and I think what I think. One of us would have to change our minds, and neither of us will.'

All expression dropped away from Draco's face. He stared down into his cauldron, twisting his rag over and over in his hands.

Harry chewed his lower lip, and said the rest of what he thought he had to say. 'If your dad will be mad at you for not being my friend anymore, you can tell him it was a disagreement about Quidditch or something stupid like that. Tell him it's my fault.'

Draco didn't reply. After a little while, he resumed his scrubbing. Harry let him have the quiet. He never did get the orange gunge out of the cauldron, but Snape let them out of detention at nine and made them leave five minutes apart so they wouldn't fight in the halls. Harry was the one he held back, and Harry spent the time stacking cauldrons, trying to talk himself out of feeling sad. If he couldn't be friends with Draco anymore, probably the rest of the Slytherins wouldn't talk to him anymore. He knew they cared more about Draco than him, of course, but he would miss them. And maybe it hadn't been clever, the way they'd been chiding him to be just a few hours ago at luncheon, saying the right things to keep people liking you, but he wouldn't have been any good at that even if he'd tried it.

I am a freak, Harry thought, and heaved a heavy sigh. He'd get it wrong eventually with the Gryffindors, too, and then he'd be just Harry again, alone because he couldn't stop thinking weird things. Magic couldn't fix everything, Lupin had told him, and Harry was finding himself very clear on that point just now.

Snape took his onset of sudden depression with deep suspicion, but sent him on his way with a curt word.

'Good night, sir,' Harry mumbled, and left trailing the scent of vinegar and polish.

* * *

'Who's that?'

Neville's eyes were the size of saucers. Harry thought this might be as well.

'Oh, that's Kingsley Shacklebolt,' Hermione told them, looking up from her spread of books. 'He's the new Defence teacher's assistant.'

Harry was disappointed only in that Tonks would not be the teacher's assistant in every class. In all other respects, Kingsley Shacklebolt was exceedingly impressive. He was nearly as tall as Hagrid, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his robe, and hands as big as dinner plates, caramel on the backs and pale cream on the palms, and his bald head gleamed in the light of the sconces.

'He's about twice of poor Quirrell,' Ron whispered, and Harry nodded. True. Two and a considerable fraction.

Quirrell was even more nervous than normal, with his assistant sitting in back and watching him teach. He wrote the wrong things on the board, stammered so badly he was hardly intelligible, and it was only twenty minutes into class when a dark splotch of sweat began to leak through the back of his robe and, not much after, his underarms as well. His face gleamed as much as Kingsley Shacklebolt's head, but it was all perspiration, thick on his upper lip and dripping down his temples. When all the students paired off to practise counterjinxing, Quirrell fetched himself a glass of water and gulped it down, and then another and another after it, and drenched a couple of kerchiefs trying to pat himself dry. Harry wrinkled his nose, but still felt very sorry for the man.

The weekend had been unremarkable, notable mostly for what wasn't happening. First years weren't crying themselves to sleep with homesickness anymore. The packages of candy and forgotten trinkets or extra clothes weren't appearing as frequently as parents began to get used to their children being gone. The societies were all up and running now, and Ron had joined the club for Wizard's Chess and Hermione had joined every possible study group and Neville had held the first session of Latin Review for Harry, Hermione, Dean, and two Hufflepuffs who had heard them talking about it in the Library, and three Ravenclaws who just seemed to know whenever anyone was learning at the weekend and appeared as if by magic. Harry had gone another Quidditch practise closer to the rematch with Hufflepuff, which would take place after Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, no matter who won that, and Oliver Wood had written an entirely new playbook around Harry's Nimbus broom, and was now industriously planning for playing in the rain instead of harping on Harry's every twitch. Life at Hogwarts had started to fall into routine, and Harry would have quite liked it if that routine still included Draco and the other Slytherins.

On the other hand, the weekend had brought a lot of new teachers assistants, and even though none of them held a candle to Tonks, so far as Harry was concerned, they were all quite interesting nonetheless. Tonks had Potions, Kingsley Shacklebolt had Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Harry had got to meet the dashing Bill Weasley in person, as he'd showed up in Charms, where Harry got to see how silly his behaviour over Tonks looked from the outside, with all the girls swooning over Bill. Ron was notably more mutinous toward Gryffindor's female population. No-one swooned over the kindly Mr Doge who had joined Professor McGonagall in Transfiguration, except Hermione, who had read all about Doge in Hogwarts: A History, and was all aflutter with the opportunity to ask him the first thousand or so questions she had begun writing in a journal specially dedicated to that task. Harry lingered to listen, not so much because he desperately wanted to know if it was true that Doge had been instrumental in the International Confederation of Wizards' treaty on the something-something-something with the northern tribes of giants, but because he was feeling rather lonely and listless. He was fiddling with his mother's wand, swishing and flicking and wondering if she'd sat by the window and if the sun had lit up her long ginger hair like in the photographs Lupin had given him, when, quite by accident, he heard Stevie Nicks.

It was Kingsley Shacklebolt, talking quietly to Bill Weasley just outside the Transfiguration classroom. Harry's ears had pricked at unfamiliar male voices, and now he left his seat and edged toward the door. Yes, that was it again.

'Can't keep up the ruse forever,' Bill was saying softly. Harry crept up the row of desks. He could just see them there and didn't want them to see him. They'd immediately stop talking and start smiling and that would be the end of finding anything out about, obviously.

'Stop-gap,' Kingsley said, and something else too low to hear, and then at a more normal, less cautious volume, 'Seven years of this?'

'Albus can't staff the entire castle solely out of Vee Nicks.'

There it was again. Bill had said it funny, with a bit of Ron's south-western English inflecting it, but Harry frowned. It hadn't sounded like _Ste_ vie Nicks, which anyway made no sense in that context.

'Going to get a bit awkward if we all have to quit our jobs,' Kingsley muttered. He stretched his big arms, muscles creaking. 'What d'you make of Potter?'

'Seems like a good kid.'

'Kid,' Kingsley said.

'Kid, yeah. Dunno why, I sort of thought he'd be- I dunno.' Bill chuckled. 'Zeus, or something. A younger Dumbledore, maybe.'

'Better a younger Dumbledore than a younger You-Know-Who.'

'You heard what Tonks said. Blew his stack at the Malfoy boy.'

'Still.'

'No still,' Bill said companionably. 'Anyway. That's what Vee Nicks is for. Mad-Eye's rubbing off on you. Relax. Our only job here is watching and waiting.'

'For Sirius Black.' Kingsley flexed his big hands. 'That'd cap any Auror's career.'

'Forget Black, I'm worried about the stone. It's mad, keeping it here in the school, Vee Nicks or no. Mad they had it here as long as they did without bringing in Vee Nicks, for that matter.'

'Harry?'

Harry jumped about a mile into the air. It was Hermione, and, behind her, a rather keen-eyed Mr Doge.

'I,' Harry croaked, and cleared his throat. 'Uh. Uh-huh.'

'Run along, Mr Potter, Miss Granger,' Mr Doge said, and maybe it was just coincidence that he pitched his voice loudly enough to be heard by the two men in the corridor, who abruptly fell silent, but maybe pigs could fly, too.

'Yes, sir,' Harry said, and grabbed Hermione by the arm and walked her very rapidly into the corridor, which was mysteriously empty. Damn.

'I have so much to-'

'I have so much to tell you,' Harry said, and looked at her as she cocked an eyebrow at him. 'What's yours about?'

'Oh, it's absolutely fascinating, Harry, Mr Doge gave me so many references and he says he can get me a pass into the Restricted Section of the Library-'

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. 'Hermione,' he said. 'You're a genius. How fast can you get that pass?'

'Oh. I? I don't know. I'll ask again at our next class, I suppose?'

'Perfect. Because I think it might take a while to find the stone.'

'What stone?' Hermione stopped dead, next, before they'd gone more than a step. 'Oh, Harry, not _that_ stone!'

'That stone, yes.'

'We don't even know which stone it is, it could be any old stone! We're standing in a castle made of a hundred million stones!'

'And one of them is important enough to send in a bunch of "teachers assistants" to guard,' Harry said, jabbing quotes at the air around what he was now absolutely sure was a crock of very clumsy lies. 'It shouldn't be that hard. How many important magical stones could there be?'

Hermione gave him an absolutely caustic stare. 'Harry, haven't you even opened Hogwarts: A History? A lot. A lot of important magical stones, Harry.'

'Good job you like to read, then.'

She punched him in the shoulder. 'Ow,' Harry said.

'Oh, did I hurt you? I'm sorry- I'm so sorry-'

Harry laughed. 'You didn't hurt me, Hermione. I'm only joking.'

Her blossoming smile was almost as funny as her punch. 'Well... okay, then.'

'Not quite,' Harry said, but he was already feeling happier. 'But very nearly. Come on, let's find Ron and Neville. They can help us with the reading.'


	9. Celebrity Relationships We Love

_In Which An Obstacle Proves Difficult To Overcome._

Professor Quirrell wasn't a horrible teacher, but he wasn't as good as, say, Flitwick, who explained things in a way Harry understood, who used metaphors and stated things several different ways to make sure everyone, magical and Muggle alike, knew what a spell was supposed to do and why. Quirrell was good at demonstrating wand movements, but Harry never had trouble with those. When Quirrell got frustrated, he stammered and stuttered and tended to just repeat himself in rising tones. Harry left his first extracurricular session with the Defence professor feeling chastened and irritable, and it had gone downhill since.

Tonks caught him as he emerged from Thursday's disastrous hour, in which Quirrell had shouted at him and Harry had shouted back, forgetting himself in his temper. Quirrell had stared at him, wide-eyed, and then in a quiet, quivering tone, dismissed him meekly. Harry was morose (a word Hermione had used to describe his mood after the last session, which he understood to mean something like gloomy; Harry thought Hermione and Professor Lupin would get on, talking in long words no-one else would understand). Seeing Tonks's smiling face brightened him immediately, however.

'Wotcher, Harry,' Tonks greeted him, bumping up against him, possibly accidentally. Tonks wasn't terribly steady on her feet, Harry had noticed, but it just meant opportunities to help her up a lot, which meant opportunities to hold her arm or sometimes even her hand, and he liked that quite a lot. 'Whoops,' she said now, brightly, as he staggered a bit, but she slung an arm about his shoulders and that was wonderful. Tonks never wore proper Wizarding robes, and Harry fully supported this decision. Today she wore acid-washed coveralls, hanging off one sloping shoulder by a single strap, and a top that bared a slice of her toned midriff.

'Those are Muggle,' Harry noted with surprise, catching an eyefull of the tag as he glanced over her in covert admiration.

Tonks winked at him. 'Muggle boyfriend,' she stage-whispered.

His brief happiness withered and dissolved. He would have to ask Hermione for a multisyllabic word for 'heartbroken'.

'You looking forward to the Halloween feast?' Tonks asked, steering him in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. 'That was always my favourite. Yule's pretty great, and Spring Equinox is all right, but Halloween is grand. You get to stuff yourself with candy and the ghosts are really into it, have you met the Fat Friar yet? He's the nicest ghost, but the Bloody Baron! Ooh.' Tonks gave a big shudder. 'He's extra terrifying. Really puts some effort into it.' She grinned down at him. 'You ever do a spot of fancy dress for Halloween? You'd be a perfect cat, those big green eyes of yours.'

Harry could still blush at her attention, despite the tragedy of her being taken by a Muggle boyfriend. 'No,' he mumbled. 'We never had Halloween, Mr Thompkins said it was a pagan ritual and heathen nonsense isn't to be tolerated.'

'Mr Thompkins your uncle?'

'No, Mr Thompkins is a teacher at-' Harry pulled himself up. 'At my school. My uncle, he, er.'

Tonks took his uneasy silence in with a concerned gaze. For a while they walked on without speaking, her arm still over his shoulder, their steps in time, Harry lengthening his stride and she shortening hers so they matched. Maybe she didn't have to do that with her Muggle boyfriend, who was probably tall and muscular and handsome, Harry thought very morosely indeed, but he was glad she would do it for him.

'Harry,' Tonks said, as they waited for one of the moving staircases to swing back round for them so they could climb to Gryffindor Tower, but then didn't at all ask what he expected, feared. 'You've been rubbing your scar a lot. It's not hurting, is it?'

'My scar?' Harry dropped his hand. He'd been massaging it without realising. He hurriedly flattened his fringe to hide it from view. 'Headache,' he said. 'I always have headaches after Defence.'

'You weren't at Defence just now, were you? Only Kingsley didn't have a class this afternoon, he said.'

'No, it's just me and Professor Quirrell. He's teaching me extra.'

'That's nice of him, int it,' said Tonks, but she frowned as she said it, and Harry didn't rightly know what to make of that. Their staircase arrived, in any event, and they hopped aboard, jogging lightly up the steps so they'd be in place for their landing. 'Harry,' Tonks asked then, as they headed down the corridor towards the Gryffindor tower, 'does the Headmaster know you're getting private lessons from Professor Quirrell?'

'I dunno. Should I ask?'

'No, I'll ask him.'

Harry had not had an opportunity to bring it up naturally before. Trying for a casual tone, as if he weren't really minding the conversation at all, he said off-handedly, 'Guess you don't have to report through Snape? If it's Vee Nicks business.'

Tonks cast him a very sharp look. Then her face smoothed out and she gave his hair a big tousle. 'You're right, getting too big for my britches. Course Professor Snape would be the proper avenue. Hierarchy, Harry, s'all about the career hierarchy. Don't want to offend anyone, do I.'

'Specially Snape,' Harry agreed, but he was disappointed she'd put him off. He was sure he'd heard her say it, the same as Bill Weasley.

He found Hermione barricaded behind a fortress of books at a table in the Gryffindor common room. Harry, who found books largely impeded his understanding of concepts that could be conveyed perfectly well by someone just saying the important bits aloud, had bribed her to research Nicolas Flamel by promising to teach her everything he learnt in his individual study with Quirrell. Harry, who still woke in the night with the shakes, knowing he'd dreamt about the evil men in the Forbidden Forest, saw it as good sense to pass along anything that might save his new friends from danger. Hermione couldn't possibly feel the same way he did, not having been out there in it like he'd been, and he knew she primarily viewed it as an advantage on exams, for which she clearly believed one could never overprepare. But every hex she learnt might buy her one more second if it were her next time, and teaching her ensured Harry got the practise he needed to learn the new spells by heart. It was, in fact, Harry's desire to learn more that tripped him up with Professor Quirrell. The Defence teacher wanted to talk a lot about the theory behind a spell and the history of it and all manner of facts and figures that held them back from actual spellcasting. It was frustrating, and he thought he'd have a lot of headaches in his future if he kept at the extra lessons.

And the Quidditch, he was forcibly reminded, spotting Oliver at another table with Percy Weasley. Harry swerved quickly, ducking low behind a big sofa with a load of chattering third-years, and secured himself in Hermione's book fortress before Oliver could find him and force him to go over battle plans for the rematch on Saturday. Harry didn't think it was possible to loathe flying, but he was coming awfully close to loathing Quidditch.

'Oh, there you are,' Hermione greeted him, as if she'd only just noticed him gone. Harry squeezed in at her table, and Hermione presented him with a large and dusty book even before he'd got himself sat and comfortable. 'This is the best source yet about Nicolas Flamel, lots and lots about his early work in alchemy.'

'Excellent.' Harry bent his head over the spot Hermione had marked with her pointer finger. 'What's algamee?'

'Oh, Harry.'

'Raised by-'

'So was I, Harry,' Hermione said, and rolled her eyes a bit when Harry just grinned at her. ' _Alchemy_ is a bit like chemistry. Alchemists were trying to transform matter.'

'Like Transfiguration?'

'Sort of, well- more like transmutation. Generally of base metals into noble metals. They were also really concerned with creating an elixir for immortality and developing a universal solvent. It's closer to modern-day potions than Transfiguration, really, although philosophically-'

'Hermione,' Harry said patiently, and she pulled herself up short with an effort.

'Anyway,' she concluded with care, 'Nicolas Flamel is the man who developed the Philosopher's Stone. Which does all three of the things alchemists wanted, since it turns mercury and lead into gold and you need it to synthesise the elixir of life, and though I haven't been able to entirely ratify the theory, it's thought by many respectable scholars that it might also act as the universal solvent. Except no-one's been able to replicate Flamel's experiments, obviously.'

'It's not that obvious,' Harry said. 'Why not?'

'Well, can you imagine the Philosopher's Stone just laying about everywhere? People would go mad fighting over it so they could make the elixir for themselves, or sell it. People would fight wars over it. That's why Flamel took it into hiding.'

Harry screwed up his nose, wondering. He often wondered over things he learnt about wizards, who were, he thought, very different from normal people, and in ways you couldn't predict, either. 'How old is Professor Dumbledore?'

'What? I don't know.'

'It's on his Chocolate Frog card. He's at least a hundred. Do all wizards live that long?'

'I shouldn't think so.' Hermione propped her chin on her fist. 'They can certainly die of disease and other things. Ron says his Aunt Muriel is two hundred and eleven, but I think he's just exaggerating.'

'If Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel were such good friends and worked on lots of experiments together, you reckon they would have shared the elixir too?'

'Maybe,' Hermione agreed reluctantly. She didn't like Harry to say critical things about Dumbledore, like pointing out when he did silly things in the Great Hall or strange things like staring at Harry all the time. 'But if he did, I'm sure it was in the nature of scientific pursuits, not any kind of selfish motive.'

'Why not? You don't think Dumbledore would want to live forever?'

'Well, who wouldn't?'

'Me,' Harry said, shuddering. 'Specially if I had to be old like that.'

A giggle escaped Hermione before she controlled it. 'Harry,' she chided.

'S'true.' Harry tried to read the page, but the words were swimmy. He rubbed his eyes under the lenses of his glasses. 'So this Philosopher's Stone thingie. If you were Voldemort, or one of the people who followed Voldemort, you'd definitely want the stone, wouldn't you, so you could go on fighting for what you wanted to do to the world forever.'

'I suppose so.'

'Anything on unicorn blood?'

'Nothing very specific.' She touched the stack of books at her right elbow. 'I hate to tell you this, but I think the only way to find out what those men were up to with the unicorn would be to look at more advanced books. Things only the older students or the teachers get to look at.'

'Okay. How do we get to look at them, then?'

'We don't,' she said. 'They're all in the Restricted Section of the library. That gated section in the back? Tell me you've at least looked round the library enough to know there's different sections!'

'Well, you did, anyway, and your word's good enough for me,' Harry answered breezily. 'What happened to Mr Doge getting you a pass?

'He's come over all suspicious,' Hermione reported, sharp with outrage, and Harry wisely did not point out that Mr Doge was entirely correct in his suspicions.

So that's the end, then? I thought there'd be more to this, somehow.'

'More than knowing what the stone is?'

'Yeah. Doing something about knowing.'

'You're rubbing your head,' Hermione noted. 'Don't you feel well?'

'Headache.' He dropped his hand with a sigh. 'I'm bushed. I'm going to have a lie-down before Latin.'

'Maybe you should skip tonight,' Hermione suggested.

Harry thought he must really look awful, if Hermione went so far as to suggest he pass on studying. And it would mean she'd be passing too, and passing on behalf of Neville and all the others who had joined them, because 'Latin' really encompassed all sorts of subjects now, not least Harry's demonstration of the extra spells he was learning. It was, Harry thought, entirely lovely to be cared after. At Crowhill, you could only go to the Infirmary if you were bleeding, and it had better be by the pint.

'Thanks,' he said, and tried to express some of the strange gratified delight he felt by touching her arm. Hermione's dusky skin pinkened noticeably, and Harry pulled his hand back. 'Sorry, um, thanks. Both. I'm all right though. I'll meet you all at the Library. You could show me the gated bit.'

Hermione's smile was unexpectedly warm. 'All right,' she agreed.

* * *

Everyone had been right. Hufflepuff went easy on Harry.

Gryffindor won, but only by ten points. Cedric Diggory caught the new Snitch, but by then Harry had scored nine goals and the other Gryffindor Chasers managed another seven, and that was the match, and the entire business was over in an hour. It had taken more than that to load the student body into the stands, and there was some grumbling as they all trooped back indoors, banners drooping dispiritedly. Harry stayed airborn with the Quaffle perched between his legs on his Nimbus, watching everyone go. He'd hardly had a chance to notice during the match, but now he thought of it, not a single Bludger had come anywhere near him. Fred and George were great Beaters, but they weren't that great, or Harry never would've been hit in the first game. Hufflepuff hadn't even been aiming at him this time.

'All right, Potter?'

It was Cedric Diggory. Harry thought. Harry had got all sweaty and overexercised with all his effort at getting goals, and his glasses had steamed up so much he could hardly see out of them now.

'Yeah,' Harry said. 'Er, could you maybe do me a favour? The others stuck my glasses to my face.'

He had a blurry impression of a grin. Something flicked at him, and Diggory said a clear 'Finite Incantatem', and Harry made a grab for his glasses as they tumbled off his nose. Diggory swooped low and quick and caught them only a few feet below Harry, and floated up next to him to hand them over.

'Ta,' Harry said, embarrassed twice over. The older student was really an excellent flyer, guiding his Cleansweep with just his knees and a muscular grace that Harry envied. Diggory was barely dishevelled, either, not a hair out of place and only a faint flush of exertion in his cheeks.

'You're doing great for a first year,' Diggory offered. 'Nine goals, nothing to sneeze at.'

Harry's ears went hot red. He occupied himself rubbing his lenses clean on his Quidditch robes. 'It's the Nimbus,' he mumbled.

'Lots of people'd just as soon fall clear off a Nimbus as control it.'

'I did that too, last match.'

Diggory laughed, though Harry hadn't actually been joking. 'You're different than I thought you'd be,' he said then. 'I mean- I mean, not that I thought- I didn't think you'd be arrogant or awful or anything, but not that you'd be-'

Harry jammed his glasses on. 'If you listen to Snape, I am those things.'

'Really? He cheered for you today.'

Harry goggled at that. Snape had been better in classes, it was true, the last few weeks, but cheering for Harry? 'Really?'

'Yeah. Well, much as Snape ever does. There were a bunch of Slytherins cheering for you, and Snape clapped every time you got a goal, and he never, ever claps for other teams.'

That was a thing to marvel at. Harry rolled the Quaffle along the length of his broomstick and back, and decided to just ask. 'Diggory? How come none of your teammates tried to catch me off today?'

Diggory blew out a long slow breath. 'Noticed, did ya.'

'Yeah. I didn't ask for that,' Harry defended himself. 'I didn't expect it.'

'And you didn't need it, I know.' Harry hadn't been fishing for that, but couldn't deny it warmed him to receive it. 'It's not because you're Harry Potter,' Diggory said at last, with such sincerity that Harry decided he could believe it. 'You're a firstie, for one thing, not fair going after you the same way we would an older player.'

That was less inspiring. 'Oliver fielded me.'

'And he shouldn't've,' Diggory replied bluntly. 'I get why he did, with your broom and all, and you're good. But it's dangerous to care more about winning than about your players.'

Harry hadn't thought of it from that perspective. Oliver did care about winning, definitely- more than he cared about pretty much anything else. But everyone said that was why Gryffindor was the best team they'd ever been now, because Oliver was so obsessed with Quidditch.

'That, and, well,' said Diggory. 'After the last match...'

Harry sighed. 'Yeah.'

The rest of the Gryffindor team had all dismounted by now and were heading inside, surrounded by a knot of cheering congratulations in red and gold. The Hufflepuffs had taken a seat low in the stands and appeared to be debriefing. Oliver wouldn't have done it like that, just casual talking. They didn't even have a whiteboard. Everyone else had gone, and Argus Filch was the lone occupant of the sands, trying to work out the hitch of the large rake that would restore the trampled grains to order.

'Potter,' Diggory said, sounding a bit shy now. 'Only, there's a lot of rumours about... about what happened to you.'

'I don't entirely know,' Harry admitted. He'd passed off most people who dared to ask by pretending he couldn't remember, but this was more like the truth. That, and he thought Diggory probably wouldn't blab it to a lot of people. Maybe he was only being nice to Harry for reasons that made Harry feel small, but it was better than being nice because he was Harry Potter, which was ridiculous. 'The Ministry sent a bunch of Aurors to look through the Forest, but I don't think they caught anyone. Or at least no-one's told me if they did, and it hasn't been in the _Prophet_. Oh, you've got a beetle on you-'

Diggory brushed the insect off the shoulder of his yellow robe with a shudder, diving a little to the side to avoid it as it flew away. He blushed when Harry looked him askance. 'I loathe bugs,' he confessed, and grinned weakly when Harry, unable to stop himself, laughed a bit. 'I know, I know, they're more scared of me, I've heard it all. But they're still awful.'

'For me it's thunderstorms,' Harry told him. He gave a shiver that wasn't entirely pretend. 'Lightning. Even when I'm indoors and it's out there.'

'That's too bad. You're going to have to observe at least one storm for Astronomy, your third year.' Harry made a face, and Diggory grinned back at him. 'It's actually really beautiful, from up there. You can feel all the magic of it, like you're right in the centre of it, like a kind of tingle all up and down your skin.'

'That's electricity,' Harry explained, recalling his lessons. Diggory looked at him curiously, obviously unfamiliar with the Muggle word. Wizards. 'We learnt that in school. It's complicated.'

'How odd.'

A little pause fell then, neither of them prepared with further conversation. Diggory scrubbed at his hair, dislodging it from one perfect wave into another that flopped boyishly over his forehead. 'Er, I could take in that Quaffle for you, if you'd like to be getting on with it.'

'Oh. Right. Thanks.' Harry tossed it through the air, and Diggory caught it easily, rolling it along his arm and giving it a little pop with his elbow so that it bounced. 'Thanks,' Harry said again.

'Yeah. You too. Well- see you around?'

'Yeah, see you around.' Harry paused. 'Diggory?'

'Yeah?'

'You're a fourth year?'

'Yeah.' Diggory swooped up on his broom to rise back to Harry's level.

'You can get into the Restricted Section of the library?'

Diggory blinked at him. 'Yeah. Did you need something for class?'

Harry bit his lip, and decided it was now or never. 'It's a long story, and you couldn't tell anyone, and, oh, you'll have to know about the Vee Nicks business too I think- but I'll explain everything if you help us,' he promised. 'It's not sneaking, not really. Well, it is, but it's only because they're all sneaking, too.'

'Who's sneaking? You mean all those new teachers' assistants?'

Harry gaped. 'You noticed that too?'

'They all appeared well after term, and I know for a fact Kingsley Shacklebolt's no teacher. He's an Auror. My dad's seen him at the Ministry all the time.'

'And Bill Weasley works for Gringotts,' Harry added. He couldn't help being excited by this information. 'This is the kind of thing I can tell you about, and that I need help with, but only if you swear to keep it quiet. Would you?'

Diggory eyed him, and then to Harry's delight he shrugged. 'I suppose I like a good mystery as much as the next lad,' he said. He put out a hand, and Harry clasped it eagerly. 'All right, I'm in. What am I getting out of the Restricted Section for you, and what's it got to do with all the new people sneaking about Hogwarts?'

* * *

Cedric proved an excellent co-conspirator, not only checking out several books on unicorns and rare magic for them- well, for Hermione- to research, but also providing a window into what happened in the upper years that fit their burgeoning theories about Vee Nicks.

For instance, the new teachers assistants seemed to get around the castle a lot more than their positions necessitated. Elphias Doge had been seen in deep discussion with two of the castle ghosts, the Grey Lady and the Fat Friar. It was Cedric's idea to approach Nearly Headless Nick with a bit of flattery and hints that he was being left out of whatever the other ghosts were doing and see if they could coax any information out of him. That went down like aces. Not only was Sir Nicholas- as he insisted on being addressed- pleased to be approached by Harry Potter, he clearly had a chip on his ghostly shoulder about the society of phantoms that populated Hogwarts' more out of the way corridors. Harry just stood there looking innocent and interested and before long Sir Nicholas was volunteering, unasked, to be their spy into the dodgy business that must surely endanger a helpless student if Sir Nicholas couldn't unearth the necessary clues.

Ron had been reluctant to get involved in Harry's hunt for the stone mostly, Harry suspected, because it involved lots of study. Cedric was useful there as well. Ron's competitive instinct kicked in when faced with Cedric's effortless excellence in all things. Cedric even came to one of their Latin sessions, praised Neville and Harry for their instruction, demonstrated a dodge and roll they wouldn't learn til third year Defence, and asked Hermione to help him organise his revision schedule around exams the way she had. That last conveyed a certain popularity on Hermione, who looked suddenly less like a boring chore and more like a gifted genius. Within a week Hermione's desk in the library had become the must-do destination for Ravenclaws, who flocked to her for charts and grids and rubrics and all other matter of complicated things that seemed to just thrill them. Her desk was also, suddenly, a popular destination for other girls, even upper years, who found her much more interesting now Cedric Diggory was seen sitting with her and smiling at her. It made Hermione quite flustered, and Ron quite scowly, but to Harry's surprise it was Neville who withdrew unhappily.

'It was nicer when she was just ours,' Neville admitted, when Harry pressed him.

Harry correctly read that less as jealousy than as anxiety about losing one of the few friends Neville had secured at Hogwarts, if ever. It was with Neville's low mood in mind that Harry finally took the step of telling Flitwick about their study group. Flitwick needed less prodding even than Sir Nicholas, though Harry perhaps oversold Neville's amazing ability in making the rest of them sound like rubes who couldn't survive a class without his help. Still, Flitwick did indeed award Neville extra credits for Charms, and that night at supper Neville was one of the students named especially for a good deed, and Professor McGonagall proudly awarded him ten entire points for initiative, scholastic achievement, and generosity toward his fellow students of all houses. Neville was tomato red the rest of the night, but floated through the rest of the week on a cloud of euphoria. His gran wrote him a letter of grudging, backhanded praise that nearly brought Neville to tears. Harry was pleased.

Everything was going so well, in fact, that by the Halloween feast Harry was entirely off his guard, and took the unexpected blow much harder than he otherwise might have.

It was the front page of the _Prophet_. The entire A section, actually. It was entitled "From The Pages of History: The Potters, The Dark Lord, and The Boy Who Lived". It was a retrospective on any number of things about Harry and his family, a veritable encyclopaedia of things Harry might have been entranced to know if not for being confronted with one fact he'd never before encountered. Right beside an all-too-familiar picture of his mum and dad holding baby Harry, there was a date. 31 October, 1981. His parents had been murdered on Halloween night.

Hermione took in the paling of Harry's face and looked on in concern. 'Harry?' she wondered.

He'd never known that. He'd never known the date of their death. It had never occurred to him to ask. But it was Halloween, they'd died on Halloween, ten years ago this very day.

'Get rid of it,' Ron said brusquely, and snatched papers right out of the hands of everyone sitting around them, throwing them furiously into a pile on the other side of the table. 'Give it, Dean!'

'I was reading that!'

'It's fine,' Harry said, but maybe he sounded shaky and hollow, the way he felt. Dean gave it up anyway, and Ron crumpled it and sat on it with a worried frown.

McGonagall had left the head table, her own copy of the _Prophet_ in hand. She was marching toward him, and she wasn't the only professor who was suddenly laser-focussed on Harry. Dumbledore was staring at him. So was Snape, who shoved Quirrell's paper out of his face with an unusually pallid look himself. The twinge of his now-familiar headache spiked through Harry's temple, and he rubbed at his scar. He didn't feel at all well.

'Potter, up,' McGonagall said, and was so foreboding looming over him that Harry's entire section of the Gryffindor table and a goodly portion of the nearby Hufflepuffs fell utterly silent. Harry rose. His knees felt like jelly, wobbling so that he wondered if he'd even be able to walk. His head hurt terribly, throbbing with pain. Harry was only barely aware of McGonagall conjuring a basin before forcibly bending him over it, and then he was vomiting up all his breakfast.

'Oh, Harry,' McGonagall murmured, vanishing his sick. 'Miss Granger, a glass of- good girl. Potter, sip some water.'

The weird hollow in his ears had begun to recede. It was replaced with sibilant whispers. He knew without lifting his eyes that everyone would be watching him. Talking about him. Talking about his parents.

His parents had died today.

'Up,' McGonagall commanded him, more gently now, and supported him with an arm about his shoulders. The walk out of the Great Hall felt longer than it ever had, like walking to the executioner. Harry took off his glasses to rub his eyes, which felt watery, but he was too numb to be weepy. His head was better, out of the press of the Hall. He could think again. Sort of. He wasn't sure what he thought, what he ought to be thinking.

No, he was. He said, 'My picture. That's my picture of them.'

'What's that, Potter?'

'The picture in the paper. Of my parents. That's my picture. It's in my album. Someone went through my things.' Terror seized him, and something hotter than terror. Fury. 'I need to look in my trunk, I need to know if they took it-'

'You need the Hospital Wing, Potter.'

'No, I need to know it's safe!'

McGonagall sighed. 'Wispy,' she said, and there was a pop of air as a house elf appeared before them. She squeaked on seeing Harry, but Harry was too wrapped up in himself to smile. McGonagall was already talking, anyway. 'Wispy, please go to Mr Potter's dorm and check the contents of his trunk. Bring his photograph album to the Hospital Wing.'

Harry appreciated, dimly, that this was a solution to his problem, but he wanted to go look for himself, wanted to be running as fast as he could, pounding up the stairs to his bedroom. His picture. It was his picture, and if someone had stolen it Harry wanted to rampage across Britain to get it back, he didn't even know where the _Prophet_ was made but he'd find out, and he'd go raging right up to the Minister of Magic himself to get it back. He had to get it back.

Poppy Pomfrey the Mediwitch didn't look pleased to have him back so soon after his misadventure in the Forbidden Forest, but she whisked him off to sit on a cot and checked his eyes, his pulse, and his temperature in quick succession, and Summoned a potion. 'It's only to settle your stomach,' she promised him, remembering without having to be told that Harry was wary of unknown effects.

'He was rubbing his scar,' McGonagall murmured from somewhere overhead. 'Does your head pain you, Harry?'

'Not anymore,' he mumbled. He picked at the skin near his fingernails. Why was Wispy taking so long- ah! She popped into the Hospital Wing, delivering the album first to McGonagall, who had after all requested it, but McGonagall handed it straight away to Harry, who flipped the pages he knew by heart. He sagged with relief. The picture was still there.

'It must have a duplicate,' McGonagall said. 'Do you know who took the photograph?'

He knew Lupin had given it to him, but not who might have taken it. But Poppy came to his rescue, inadvertently, saying, 'Minerva, goodness, it's been a decade. How could he know?' She presented Harry with another potion, mercifully small for all it looked like orange gunge. 'For the headache. I promise, you mistrusting young man.'

Harry drank obediently. It tasted as orange and as gungy as it looked. He gagged a bit and only just stopped himself wiping his tongue on his sleeve. 'Maybe someone made a duplicate and put it back in my album after,' he guessed.

'I find it difficult to believe someone with sinister intent would be stalking about the school and breaking into children's dormitories unnoticed,' McGonagall said stiffly.

'They could do it when everyone was at classes, ma'am. Then none of the teachers' assistants would even be out in the corridors to see.'

McGonagall took him in with a sharp glance. 'Mmph,' she replied, but Harry could see she was thinking about what he'd said as much as wanting to scold him for knowing enough about who the teachers' assistants really were.

'Perhaps a ward on Mr Potter's trunk,' Madam Pomfrey suggested, and that made peace between everyone as they considered it. 'And it might do to ask the house elves and the portraits to keep a keen eye on anything unusual. If there is someone skulking about, they'd know first.'

'You're quite right, my dear. And I will change the password for the Gryffindor Common Room immediately. How are you feeling now, Potter? Well enough to go-'

'Well enough to rest,' interrupted Pomfrey, and Harry glared. He was absolutely sure that Madam Pomfrey would have him flat on his back in the middle of an earthquake if she thought he was at all agitated.

But in truth he was a little glad of her insistence. He was past the worst of the shock, but he dreaded that newspaper. It would be all over the school now he'd reacted so strongly, and that meant everyone would be reading the articles all day long to see what had upset him. It was enough to quell his momentary courage. So he let himself be settled back with a plate of toast and hot tea to replace what he'd lost so spectacularly in the Great Hall, wrapped up in a quilt, and let the quiet do the rest to settle him down. McGonagall left, and Pomfrey let him alone to his thoughts, so mostly Harry sat sipping his tea and looking mindlessly through the album. The thought of hands not his touching these pages maddened him. These were the only clues he had to what his parents had been like, really- not the things they'd done, the things other people could tell him about them, but what they'd really been like. His father had a dimple in his cheek from grinning so much, and his mother had very faint freckles over her nose, which she scrunched up when she laughed. His father tilted his head to the left all the time, and sometimes looked up over the rim of his glasses, and he ran his hand through his hair to make it stand up, which Harry thought was funny, since Harry would give anything sometimes to have the opposite effect. And his mum, he treasured most the one picture of his mum holding her wand, the wand they shared. It was her graduation day from Hogwarts, and she wore lovely fine robes with the red and gold of Gryffindor layered on her sleeves, and a tall witch's cap and her long lovely hair swept over one shoulder, and her head was thrown back in silent laughter as she lifted her wand high and shot sparks from the tip into the air like firecrackers. She looked utterly unburdened in that moment, as light as air, and young and wonderful and proud of herself. Harry wanted to feel like that on the day he left Hogwarts, but he wanted even more that she would have been there to snap a photo of him feeling it.

Whoever had stolen his picture, Harry thought- I hate them.

But he couldn't lay abed all day for a little upset, and when the bell rang for classes Madam Pomfrey asked if he were all right to leave, and he agreed. It was as well he did. He emerged into the corridor to find several people waiting for him, and despite himself he blushed at the attention. Ron and Hermione of course, and Neville too, and Cedric had come, standing head and shoulders taller even than Ron, who was the tallest of the entire crop of first years, but smiling readily at finding Harry well. But the greatest surprise was that, slightly to one side and huddling a little close together as if unsure of their welcome, stood Millicent Bulstrode and Teddy Nott and even Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini.

'Hi,' Harry said, and bit back a grin that was half confusion and half amazement. 'You came to see me?'

'Of course we came to see you, silly,' Millie said, rolling her eyes. His addressing the Slytherins first restored her confidence, and she came straight away to him, crushing him close with a hug. 'You all right, Harry? We all saw the paper. That Rita Skeeter cow's a menace!'

'Rita Skeeter?' Harry rolled his shoulders a little when Millicent released him, hearing one pop back into place a bit. 'That was all her?'

'Well, not all her, obviously,' said Hermione, glaring a little at the Slytherins. 'But she wrote the worst of it. Oh, it's infuriating. She told it all in the most lurid way and got all your parents' neighbours to give up the most horrible details-'

Harry felt a little green again, and then a little blocked up, since Madam Pomfrey's stomach potion didn't quite want to let him sick up again. But Ron elbowed Hermione and whispered fiercely in her ear til she flushed, and put her hands to her flaming cheeks.

'Oh,' she said. 'Harry- sorry.'

'It's like they forget you're a real person, I think,' Neville said unexpectedly. He scuffed a shoe over the stone tile. 'To them it's all just a story. To us- you- it's, you know. It's our lives.'

Cedric, of all people, seemed to be the only one besides Harry who caught that slip. He looked at Neville with great sympathy, and sighed. No-one else seemed to notice, though, and Harry resolved to ask later, when it wouldn't shame Neville.

'Harry?'

Draco had appeared. Or had maybe been there all along, but hanging back with such an unexpectedly large group arriving to see Harry out. But the bell was about to ring, and they would all of them be late to class at this point, and Harry lost the chance to say he was glad to see Draco, who'd been avoiding him for weeks, because the Slytherins took over before he could.

As one, they turned their backs on him. 'Glad you're all right, Harry,' said Millie, as she turned her face away from Draco.

'Let us know if anyone gives you trouble,' said Teddy, the longest and loudest thing Harry had ever heard him say, and his tone left no doubt who he thought was undesirable.

It was Harry's turn to stare after someone. Draco held his head high, but it was plain he was miserable. 'I didn't know,' Harry said, and Draco's fists clenched on the strap of his bag. 'I thought they'd choose you.'

'Because you still won't admit you know how people see you,' Draco said, biting the words off as if he barely wanted to let them past his lips. 'You should have known they'd choose you. Of course they'd choose you. You're Harry Potter.'

A remnant of Harry's temper flared, still raw from being too much Harry Potter only an hour ago. 'I can't help that. I don't want that.'

Draco visibly stopped himself retorting. His knuckles were white with the force of his grip. 'I just came to see if you were all right.'

'You can feel sorry for me and still be irritated with me?'

'Very much so.'

Unwillingly Harry smiled. But Ron went butting in, not noticing or understanding that Harry's temper was already fading. Draco's sense of humour worked with Harry, who could let quite a lot roll off him, but Ron had been his entire life under brothers who used him as the butt of their jokes, and he was far more sensitive to little slights than Harry was. Ron had clenched fists, too, and he was suddenly standing between Harry and Draco, seized up tight and going red in the face, a sure sign he was about to snap.

'Don't talk to him like that,' Ron said. 'You don't get to talk to anyone like that.'

'Like what, Weasel? Use your words,' Draco mocked him, and Harry sighed, because he saw the bad end coming, and no way to avoid it.

Ron went strawberry like he'd boiled over all at once. 'You think you're so much smarter than everyone else, Malfoy. Well, guess what. Harry sees right through you. You and your Death Eater dad!'

Draco had his wand drawn in an instant. 'You take it back!'

'Why?' Ron taunted him, and he had his wand out too, aimed at the broad target of Draco's chest. 'It's true. He's not fooling anyone, you know, and neither are you. Show us your arm, Malfoy, unless you're afraid.'

'Detention, Mr Weasley.'

The words were so cutting that Harry automatically looked about for Snape. But it was Madam Pomfrey, drawn by the noise right outside her clinic, and her eyes were narrowed to slits and there were two spots of colour in her cheeks.

'You're not a professor,' Ron said, uncertain and unwisely.

'So far as you're concerned, young man, I'm the Queen of England,' Pomfrey snapped. 'Put up your wand or I'll have you scrubbing bedpans til Christmas. And don't go sneaking off, Mr Malfoy, that's five points from you, as well. Duelling in the halls is a serious offence, even when provocation is given.'

'Madam,' Harry tried, and Pomfrey abruptly flapped a hand at him.

'And in front of someone so delicate!' she added, and Harry gave up Ron and Draco so he could die of humiliation.

'I'm not delicate!' he protested, squeaking with the horrid indignity of it, right there in front of Cedric and Neville and _Hermione_ , but the bell finally rang, and they were all officially late for their first class, and everything was awful and Harry would have given anything to just wake up from what was surely a nightmare.

But it wasn't, and they had to trudge on through the day as was. Harry didn't lose any points for being late, which meant no-one who showed up with him did either, since they could reasonably claim they'd been escorting him, but that was the brightest spot in a grim day. Harry had never realised just how distracting newspapers could be. Even at the height of mania over his newness in the Wizarding world it hadn't been this bad. It wasn't long before someone scrubbed up the courage to ask Harry to verify some bit of an article, and then the floodgates were open. He finally read one of the stories Hermione said wasn't too bad, and spent an hour staring into space instead of learning to open a lock with a charm. Bill Weasley was watching him with a frown, but was called away to actually assist Flitwick when Parvati Patil's _Alohomora_ went funny, and Harry spent the rest of the class in uninterrupted contemplation of the fact that there was something called a Killing Curse, and it left no mark on the people it killed, and his father had died with his eyes open and his mother had fallen right before his crib, empty when Harry was spirited away in the wake of the murder.

He was swarmed in the corridors between classes, surrounded by a circle of friends trying to protect him from the circle of students who wanted his opinion about the _Prophet_ and would he sue for libel or was it true his parents and their house had been under the Fidelius to keep it hidden and Hermione advised him to just tune it out, and Ron nearly drew his wand on someone again. McGonagall had them spend all of Transfiguration on a spontaneous quiz which kept them, heads bowed, quiet at ther desks, unable to look at the papers in their laps without getting caught for cheating. There could be no peering at papers in Flight, either, where Madam Hooch had them broom polishing all afternoon. Dimly, Harry appreciated their intervention on his behalf, but if anything it only delayed the frenzy. Harry spent luncheon in his dorm rather than the Great Hall, utterly devoid of appetite and unable even to care about the Halloween feast they were promised for dinner. But by far the worst class of the day was Defence. Quirrell gave them a free hour to work on their essays, and made only a few feeble attempts to quiet the whispers that sprung up immediately between pairs at their desks.

'P-potter,' Quirrell called him, and Harry left his seat beside Ron to trudge to the front. 'D-doing all right, are you?' Harry shrugged silently. Quirrell glanced behind him, as someone tittered girlishly. 'I sh-shouldn't worry. It's just- just- words.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry mumbled.

Quirrell peered at him. Harry rubbed at his head. His headache had come back. He was starting to think he was allergic to something in the Defence classroom. Madam Pomfrey's headache potion hadn't lasted as long as her stomach potion.

'Do you-' Quirrell paused. 'Do you r-remember any of it, Potter?'

Harry shrugged again, digging the point of his mother's wand into his palm. 'No, guess I was too young.'

Quirrell seemed strangely disappointed. 'Ah, well,' he said.

Only that wasn't entirely the truth. Harry did remember the green light, and the lady screaming. His mother. He swallowed. It was hard, with his throat feeling clogged like that. And his head was really hurting horribly. He was almost getting dizzy from it. 'Can I sit down, sir,' he began.

A thud shuddered through the whole class, a vibration like the strike of a tuning fork, something both heard and felt at once. Heads came up.

There. Again. Far away, someone yelled. There was another thud, and this time a shiver of stone dust fell from the ceiling and desks rattled as the wooden legs jumped across the floor.

The classroom door burst open. It was Kingsley Shacklebolt, and his wand was drawn.

'Everyone stay here,' he ordered them in a ringing voice. 'You'll be safe inside.'

Quirrell had started to his feet, his hands twisting anxiously over each other. 'Wh-what's- what's g-g-going-'

'Troll in the dungeons,' Shacklebolt said, and Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil shrieked and dove for cover under their desk with copies of the Prophet fluttering to the ground beside them. 'Come on, Quirinus, we need you. The Slytherins are down there.'

'Oh, I- I d-don't-'

'Now, man!' Another thud punctuated Shacklebolt's order. He didn't wait for Quirrell, but took off running, then skidded to a halt and came back to slam shut the door. Everyone stared as he shouted a locking spell from the corridor, and then everything was silent.

Harry swayed on his feet. The Slytherins were down there. Trapped in the dungeon with a troll. 'Aren't you going?' he demanded, and Quirrell turned wide eyes on him, sweat starting on his forehead. 'Aren't you going, Professor?'

'What do you c-care, Potter? St-stay in your- your seats,' he told the rest of the class, most of whom disobeyed immediately and started exclaiming to each other, the chatter reaching a deafening pitch in record time. 'Sit down, Potter.'

'But you're the Defence teacher,' Harry said. 'You have to help save them.'

'They're only Slytherinsss.' He choked himself to a stop, and squinted down at Harry as if afraid Harry would repeat what he'd just heard. Harry could hardly speak at all, in fact, struck dumb by hearing a teacher say something so terrible.

Harry whirled. And found Hermione and Neville and even Ron already waiting right behind him.

'Well, it's a troll,' Ron muttered. 'Wouldn't wish a troll on anyone, even Malfoy.' He considered it for pretend for a moment, and grinned. 'Maybe Crabbe and Goyle, though. They're at least half troll as it is.'

Harry could have burst with pride in that moment. It wiped away everything wrong with the entire day. He felt- he felt overfull with feelings, really, but most of all he felt like he could conquer anything, much less a troll.

'Who can cast Alohomora the best?' he asked, and they ran together for the door.


	10. Troll!

_In Which Missing Pieces Are, Provisionally, Located._

'If I'd known it would come to this,' Harry muttered ungenerously, 'I'd never've gone after the stupid troll.'

'You hadn't ought to've done it at all,' Tonks reminded him, altogether too cheery. 'But you did, and people like to acknowledge bravery. The more idiotic, the more they reward it. Better you than them, after all.'

Harry was inclined to be cross with her. It wasn't his fault there'd been a troll in the dungeons. This was a lot of fuss over something Harry had just as soon forget. He scraped at the sore skin at his fingernails. There was a small spot of blood from where he'd worried at it too much, but he had to express his nerves somehow. Everyone- _everyone_ \- was looking at him, and Rita Skeeter's photographer was taking about a thousand pictures a minute, and the school governor who was up at the podium giving a speech kept saying Harry's name with tones of very stuffy importance, lingering lovingly on phrases like 'The Boy Who Lived', and worst of all were his friends who milled around in an uncomfortable knot of awkward pre-teens, Draco enjoying all the attention and Ron looking envious and Neville looking faint and Hermione not looking at anything at all with her red face buried shyly in her hands, but none of them doing anything at all to alleviate Harry's anxiety by coming to stand with him.

'Stop picking at your hands,' Snape ordered him quietly from the left, and Harry twitched to a halt, holding his arms stiffly at his sides. 'Miserable habit. Conduct yourself maturely and stoically.'

Harry didn't know what stoically was, but probably Snape really meant act like Snape, so Harry frowned at the Great Hall and kept his spine stiff and his knees locked.

Lucius Malfoy stepped to the podium next, and displayed something in a small black velvet box to the breathless student body. 'And now it is my great pleasure,' he said pompously, 'to award Mr Potter with a medal for his indispensable Service To The School, to join the awards of a hundred generations of students who have performed above and beyond even the high standards we maintain at Hogwarts. Mr Potter, if you please.'

'Go,' Snape said, his cool hand pressing gently between Harry's shoulderblades and giving him a very slight push. Harry managed not to fall on his face crossing the fifteen feet between him and the podium, though he missed the mark Mr Malfoy indicated and they engaged in a brief, embarrassing game of shuffle til Harry was standing in front of the podium, not on it, and Mr Malfoy loomed over him with some kind of large gold badge thing Harry couldn't get a proper look at. Harry held the little velvet box in sweating hands as Mr Malfoy gathered the shoulder of Harry's robe and stuck it through with the pin on the back of the badge. Harry jumped as the point grazed his skin, a little prick of pain, but Mr Malfoy didn't seem to notice. He put a familiar arm about Harry's shoulders and turned him to face the crowd, which burst into clamourous applause.

'Harry, how do you feel, love?' Rita Skeeter called, over the noise.

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and rubbed self-consciously at his scar. It ached, and he wanted one of Madam Pomfrey's headache tonics. 'Tired,' he said honestly, and Skeeter's face fell a little. 'Um,' Harry said, 'er... I mean... glad that everyone's safe and that the troll didn't hurt anyone.'

Mr Malfoy squeezed Harry close. 'A modest young hero,' he said, and Rita Skeeter wrote that down, too, sniffing eagerly as Mr Malfoy wound himself up to deliver more speechifying, but to Harry's surprise Mr Malfoy only stood looking down at him, forcing Harry to stare quite a long ways up at him from an uncomfortable angle.

Abruptly Mr Malfoy said, 'You've saved my son's life, Mr Potter. A debt is owed. I hope you will allow me some time to consider how it may best be repaid.'

Rita Skeeter looked absolutely ecstatic at that. 'Oh,' Harry said. 'It's all right. I mean, I wouldn't have let anything bad happen to Draco if I could help it.'

Mr Malfoy smiled. It wasn't a very nice smile, though it looked more natural on him than Professor Snape, whose smiles tended more toward pained grimaces. 'You are new to the Wizarding World, Mr Potter,' Mr Malfoy told him solemnly. 'You are perhaps unfamiliar with the magic of a life-debt. But one is owed, and as head of the Malfoy line I assure you I will honour it. For the sake of my son.'

Draco prompted him with a mute 'please' when Harry glanced at him. 'Okay,' Harry replied helplessly. 'If it's important to you.'

'It is,' Mr Malfoy confirmed, and released Harry at last. 'Thank you, Mr Potter.'

* * *

It had been easier than Harry thought to find a troll in the dungeons. One had only to follow the trail of destruction, the shouts of wizards and witches fleeing frantically, and an overpowering odour like a flooded bog.

It was rather much harder, though, figuring out what to do once one had located the troll.

Ron was gaping openly, and Neville looked faint. Hermione gulped, and, in all honesty, Harry felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He was awfully glad the Sorting Troll hadn't been real after all. Maybe this troll was just especially large for his species, but it was much more like a giant, as Harry recalled them from fairy tales, towering so tall its bulbous head scraped the ceiling and bumped into the hanging lanterns, so that the magelight danced like disco and the shadows on the dank walls leapt and fell in alarming accompaniment to the staggering creature. Its bellow was like the MGM lion's roar, wordless and rageful, and it bellowed almost continuously as it lurched about swinging a club the size of Kingsley Shacklebolt. It nearly felled Kingsley Shacklebolt, in fact, who only just dove aside from a blow that sprayed chunks of stone right out of the floor all over everyone.

 _'Impedimenta!'_ Shacklebolt shouted, and beside him was Bill Weasley, his wand conjuring chains and trip wires and nets that all snapped as the troll threw wide its huge muscled arms and shook the entire corridor with its boat-sized stomping feet. Elphias Doge was Transfiguring chunks of the floor into quicksand, but it only enraged the troll further. Its club cratered the nearest wall, knocking it in as effectively as a blast of dynamite.

'The Slytherins,' Harry said, going queasy again in fright, but not for himself this time. Over all the shouting and the troll's mindless hollering he could hear sobbing and cries for help. 'They're trapped inside.'

The troll sniffed like a dog. He'd noticed the Slytherins, too, and the hexes that the teachers' assistants hurled at his thick hide went unnoticed as he investigated. He ripped out a huge chunk of stone with his bare hands, peeling back the wall like an orange. He'd discovered a classroom full of tasty treats, and with a hunter's concentration it ignored all other distractions but the lure of food.

' _Confundus!_ ' Elphias Doge thundered, the jinx leaving his wand in a blast of light and striking the troll squarely on the back of the head. The troll tripped over a big block of stone and staggered. Bill Weasley added his power to Doge's, doubling the jinx, and the troll shook its head dazedly, scratched its flat forehead, and shrugged. It levered a big kick at the crumbling wall, knocking in a hole nearly big enough for it to step through.

'Everyone all together like we practised!' Harry instructed his friends, and all of them raised their wands, though they were pale and afraid and looked to Harry for the cue. 'The leg-locker,' Harry told them. It was one they'd done in both class and in their Latin study sessions in the Library, and one he was sure all of them could cast successfully. 'Remember, swish left, swirl anti-clockwise-'

A curious thing happened, though Harry was almost too wrapped-up in the moment to notice. He felt an odd tingle in his hand, not in his wand where he could usually sense a kind of warmth and excitement, as if it enjoyed spell-casting as much as Harry did. But no, the tickle was definitely in his hand, like an electric shock cramping his fingers. And the spell burst out of his wand much brighter and stronger than it did the others, racing to strike the troll just as it swung another kick at the wall. And it worked! With an audible snap the troll's legs came slamming together, like a rubberband overstretched to breaking, and it teetered over backward with a wail of surprise. The weight of its landing created a small quake, shaking the walls and making the floor tremble, and the troll thrashed about with its club, but the teachers' assistants had no difficulty at all in trapping it now. Doge conjured ropes that tied themselves all about the creature and Bill Weasley Confunded it again, and soon it lay there moaning and groaning, only its fingers twitching free.

Harry wasn't watching the troll by then- he was watching the students the troll had been attacking, who came climbing out over the rubble of the destroyed wall. Tonks was with them, and no-one seemed hurt, although several were splashed with some kind of beige sludge from destroyed potions. It was the Potions laboratory, then, and a mix of Gryffindors and Slytherins, including two ginger twins who looked not at all shaken by their ordeal, indeed even a little excited, bounding right up to the troll to investigate. Bill Weasley grabbed them away and chided them severely, though he was also hugging them- they were his younger brothers, after all, and he must have been desperately worried about them trapped in the classroom- and Ron went running over as well, for once giving over his dignity to throw his arms about the nearest twin.

Harry stood looking at his hand and his wand. Had he only imagined that? He'd been caught up in the danger and only concerned with defeating the troll. But what could it mean- that that was the hand on which he'd had the unicorn blood, that Professor Lupin had called unicorn blood unwillingly given a Dark element? Harry shivered.

No. That wasn't Harry. That was the ground, shivering with a thump like it had when the troll had fallen down. And, almost inaudible over the chatter of all the relieved students now milling about and exclaiming over the conquered troll, Harry was sure he heard a scream.

'Did you hear that?' he asked Neville, only to realise Neville no longer stood there. Kingsley Shacklebolt had made it to his feet again and Neville and Hermione stood to either side of him, helping him limp to meet with Tonks and Doge. Harry stood alone, at the far edge of the crowd. And when the floor shivered again, Harry was the only one there to feel it.

The decision made itself, really. He didn't even think about it. He had his wand in his fist and his feet just turned themselves to go, and then he was jogging down the corridor. All about him were the same signs that had indicated the presence of a troll, scrapings on the wall from the club, that awful smell like a wet dog and sewage, and the most telling clue of all. A troll's shattering roar, followed by a scream.

Harry turned a corner, and found the second troll ripping the door off the boy's loo and shouldering through the cracking wooden jamb.

Immediately and without hesitation Harry cast the leg-locker jinx again. Just as before it left his hand with unusual determination, a surge of power Harry hadn't felt in class when everyone cast it giggling over the silly effect on their tablemates. Maybe his own urgency made the difference, his fear for whoever was stuck in that watercloset as the troll lumbered on, but whatever the case it hit the troll hard. This one wasn't as large or as unbalanced as the first troll, and only wobbled in place before it set a shoulder to the mirrored wall over the sinks and poked curiously at its stuck knees. Harry took advantage of its distraction and ran to the door, ducking the lumbering swing of the club and falling to his knees to peer under the stall doors.

Draco's wide grey eyes stared back at him. 'Harry,' he gasped.

Harry stuck out a hand. 'Come out, now!'

Draco didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed Harry's wrist and slid out the space under the door, stumbling to his feet just as the troll let loose a bellow of rage. Harry pushed Draco flat as the troll swung that deadly club near enough to their heads that the wind of its passing ruffled Harry's hair. The club crushed the door of the stall where Draco had been hiding, and the wood buckled like tissue. Draco shrieked- he'd later deny that- but Harry didn't hardly notice, since he was shrieking himself. They scrambled for the shelter of the next cubicle, and the troll lumbered in a kind of determined hop on its locked legs to follow them. It tore down the door with just its big hand, and Harry threw up an arm to protect his and Draco's heads as wooden splinters flew everywhere. The troll's club rose high above them, and-

A growling bark punctured the troll's gurgling groan of triumph. Then the troll was bleating in pain, and Harry peeked just as a furry black body hit the tile and skidded into him. He and Draco were knocked about like bowling pins, felled against the porcelain toilet. The big black dog scrabbled on the tile with its claws and launched itself back at the troll, hitting it so hard that it seemed to spring backward, crashing back into the sinks with a deep wail as the dog tried to rip out its throat. It grabbed the dog by the nape of its neck and yanked it right off its chest, and the dog's tortured yelp as it hurtled helplessly through the air struck ice into Harry's chest.

Harry's brain made several connections at once- that was his dog, his dog from Crowhill!- But it wasn't his dog, it was the beast from the Forbidden Forest!- There was no way for the beast and the dog to be the same unless something very fishy or very magical was happening- and even if it had there was no way the dog should have got into the school- unless it had followed the troll inside- which it would only have done if it thought the troll- trolls- were dangerous- it had seen the trolls- it had been watching the school and had seen the trolls getting in somehow- Someone had _let in_ the trolls, because everyone had been at pains to tell Harry how safe the school was- and all those connections firing at once had nothing and everything to do with the sudden fear that took him when he saw the dog sprawled on the tile whimpering.

He was on his feet without remembering standing. Draco yanked at his hand, trying to pull him back to safety, but Harry had already begun his spell. His wand wove through the air, levelled at the broad target of the troll's moss-green chest, and his voice was steady and determined as he pronounced the spell that had struck him out in the Forbidden Forest, just before the dog had saved him.

 _'Stupefy!'_ Harry shouted. And this time he was ready for the surge of extra power, the strange thrilling rawness of the magic gathering in his hand and expelling itself through the length of his wand.

The troll reeled back from the surge of bright light with a great squeal of startlement, keeled over backward, and lay still.

'Harry.' Draco clung to his arm, but when Harry turned solicitously to him, he flushed and got to his feet on his own, even if he didn't quite let go of Harry's sleeve. 'Did you... did you kill it?'

'I don't think so.' No. A moment later, the troll's foetid breath rolled over them. It began to snore. 'Oh,' Harry said, clambering over one of the troll's tree-trunk-like legs to get to the dog.

The dog was alive too, though it whined when Harry carefully touched its heaving ribcage. Harry couldn't very well tell if anything was broken, but the dog licked his palm and nosed at him with a familiar sniff. Harry rubbed its ears.

'You tried to save me again,' he said, only partially for the dog. Mostly for himself, to confirm it was true and not just what he wanted to believe. 'Do you belong to the dark man? No... no. You're not really a dog, are you?'

'Harry, what is that?'

'Who is it,' Harry guessed, and the dog shivered under his touch. It tried to stand, and Harry helped by putting both arms about the dog's barrel chest and adding his leverage to the effort. For a moment the dog rested its chin on Harry's shoulder, but then it heaved a deep sigh and slid away.

Slid, and slid. Slid onto its hindquarters, and then upright, and then taller than a dog should have been, sliding right on up into the form of a man, a big bony man with dark matted hair and liquid silver eyes that stared warily, wearily at Harry.

'Sirius Black,' whispered Draco, and Harry thought rather distantly that Professor Lupin was probably going to be disappointed in him.

All Harry said, though, was, 'You had better hide. I think a lot of the teachers' assistants are here hunting for you.'

A flicker of emotion passed that gaunt face. Black nodded, chin bobbing just slightly toward his chest. 'Thank you,' he said, the words issuing with painful hoarseness, as if he hadn't expected the chance to say them at all. He pressed the hand with the faded blue tattoos of stars against his side, but wavered, hesitating.

'Go,' Harry said, as he heard a shout- his name- Ron's familiar holler. 'They'll be coming.'

'That Professor of yours,' Black said, even as he limped for the wrecked door of the loo. 'I don't know his name, the one from the Forest. Watch him, Harry. He's up to something.'

'I'll watch. Hurry, please.'

'Watch,' Black repeated, and for the first time something a little lively blinked out of his hollow eyes. 'Don't try to take him on yourself. He won't go down as easy as a troll.'

'That was easy?' Harry grinned with sudden recklessness. 'Go on,' he said again, but the man was sliding back into the dog disguise, and the dog was slipping away into the shadows.

Not a moment too soon. Ron, Neville, and Hermione were leading the pack of people running for them, and it was a large crowd of people all in a hair-trigger grip on their wands. Bill Weasley fired a spell at the downed troll, evidently just to be sure of it, and behind him was Tonks and Shacklebolt and at their heels were half of the professors of the school, McGonagall with her spectacles askew and her bun coming unpinned and Snape with his face paler than usual but for two bright spots of red in his cheeks and Quirrell, being forcibly dragged along by Snape's hand latched to his shoulder, limping and whimpering all the way. And Headmaster Dumbledore, who looked not at all ruffled by the fuss, taking in the downed troll with nothing more than a small, approving smile.

'Well, I believe you two have just passed your Defence NEWTs with full marks,' he greeted Harry and Draco.

'Oh, Albus,' McGonagall complained, though she didn't let that stop her grabbing Harry and Draco by an ear each and hauling them away from the troll. 'What in Merlin's name were you thinking?' she scolded them in a magnificently ringing voice. 'Two first-year students facing off a troll? A troll!'

'It was trying to eat Draco!' Harry protested, straining on his tip-toes to avoid the pull at his ear. McGonagall let him go once they were well out of the wreckage of the loo.

'That doesn't excuse thoughtless egotism,' Snape accused him, and Harry felt his face go hot with temper. But the fire washed away in upset as Snape added, 'Your parents didn't die for you so you could traipse about throwing yourself into foolish heroics-' He yanked Draco away from Harry and McGonagall. 'You were surrounded by adult wizards and witches all more qualified than you to battle a Class Two Beast-'

'Severus,' Dumbledore interrupted mildly. 'We must contact the governors and the Minister to alert them to the breach of security. Mr Shacklebolt, Mr Weasley, Miss Tonks, will you three kindly reunite this she-troll with her mate up the corridor? They will be easier to return to their lair if they are encouraged to go together, I'm sure.'

'Professor Dumbledore,' Hermione began, but the Headmaster smiled blithely at her and then very deliberately ignored her.

'Let us only be glad that none of the children were harmed,' he said. 'In times of danger, Hogwarts protects its own.'

'But that's just it, Professor,' Hermione insisted, going a bit shrill when McGonagall tried to hush her. 'That's why we came running to the dungeons at all. Professor Quirrell said-'

'I r-r-regret,' Quirrell interjected. 'The su-suprise of the m-moment. I tr-tried to stop them going, Albus. I di-didn't catch them up t-til-'

'But you said,' Hermione protested, and Ron was open-mouthed in disbelief, but Quirrell's lie went stuttering on with a pretty show of apology not nearly sincere enough to cover the appalling thing he'd actually done, refusing to stir from his safe classroom to help the Slytherins.

'Til our- teachers' ass-assist-tants had felled the f-first troll,' Quirrell said regretfully, mopping sweat at the hem of his turban. 'In the f-fray I didn't n-notice Potter had g-gone.'

'None of us did,' Shacklebolt forgave him, giving Harry a thoughtful gaze. 'Still, your teaching's to be commended, Quirinus. Not every first year can knock out a fully-grown she-troll.'

'By all means, Quirinus, teach the boy to take on manticores and Inferi next,' Snape snapped. 'These special lessons of yours will have Potter clearing out all manner of rubbish with tender disregard for his own safety!'

'Still,' Dumbledore broke in gently. 'Your point is taken, Mr Shacklebolt. Harry. Perhaps an acknowledgment that you understand why you have your teachers quite so upset on your behalf?'

Harry rubbed at his head. His headache was back, almost as bad as it had been in the classroom before he'd gone charging out troll-hunting. Snape was right. He had been foolish, and doubly so, even if it was horribly unfair that Quirrell would get away with not having to admit he hadn't wanted to save the Slytherins. It had been such a horrible day, all in all. Abruptly Harry felt drained of all energy, even the energy to be angry and hurt. He was glad Draco was safe, and all the rest of it would wait til later. All he wanted was to lie down and sleep.

'I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

'For?'

'For going after the troll alone. I guess it was stupid.'

'Not stupid,' Dumbledore corrected gently. 'But rather demonstrably dangerous. Ten points, I think, for rushing headlong into danger, and for leading others to it.' Dumbledore paused. 'And five points,' he said then, 'to be awarded for your excellent Stunning spell, and your concern for your fellow student. I'm sure young Mr Malfoy is grateful for your care of him.'

Young Mr Malfoy didn't look especially grateful, as it happened. Judging by the mutinous expression on Draco's face, he also thought he was worth more than two and a half points, but all told Harry knew it was a very light punishment, and that Dumbledore hadn't just forgot about the fact that Ron, Hermione, and Neville coming down to the dungeons with him; he'd only chosen not to punish them, since Harry had already taken the brunt of it. With that, Harry had to be content. At least no-one else had suffered because of him.

'It's not Harry's fault,' Draco interrupted then, and perhaps the sheer novelty of a Slytherin standing up for a Gryffindor halted everyone in action. Even Harry was a bit surprised by that statement, but Draco was just getting started, and what he said next was infinitely worse. 'I reckon it's all Sirius Black's doing, anyway.'

It was as if the words 'Sirius Black' had cast a deathly pall on every person there. A hush fell. Even Snape stood shocked to silence.

'Black?' Dumbledore repeated, in a polite little way, as if he only enquired after the weather.

'Obviously,' Draco said in his most irritatingly insufferable tone, and Snape recovered enough to give him a little condemnatory shake. 'Sir,' Draco appended. 'But it's obvious, isn't it. How else would trolls get into the school if Sirius Black didn't let them in?'

Harry stared at Draco, wishing very hard in that moment he was telepathic or whatever wizards would call it. _Don't tell them,_ he tried very hard to imprint on Draco, wishing it with all his might. _Don't tell them. Don't tell them he was here._

Draco's mental receptor was broken, however, and the words came right on out without hardly a halt for all Harry's glaring. 'Then again,' Draco said thoughtfully, 'if Black can't get through the school wards, then maybe there's someone inside the school helping him?'

Harry understood in a flash. Draco wasn't giving up Black, even if he couldn't possibly understand Harry's decision to let Black run. But he had found a way to pass on Black's warning. Don't trust your professor, the one from the Forest.

Someone had let the trolls in. And that someone almost had to be a professor.

Harry had no sooner arrived at the conclusion Draco was patiently leading everyone else to than Kingsley Shacklebolt put a stop to all the mouths opening with questions. 'Not here,' Shacklebolt said only, and very firmly, and Dumbledore agreed, and Snape made a grab for Draco and McGonagall for Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville and they were all being marched off to their respective common rooms where they would remain well out of the temptation for further mischief, not to mention any opportunities to glean any usable information.

Harry peered over his shoulder as McGonagall hustled him along, chiding him all the way, and found Draco looking back for him, too, as he was herded off by Snape toward the Slytherin dorms. Thank you, Harry mouthed at him, and Draco smiled a small, sober smile, right before he vanished round a corner.

* * *

Sleep wasn't in the cards for Harry. Afternoon classes were cancelled, and everyone was crowded into their common rooms, which promptly turned into a mass of shouting students all over-excited by the invasion of a trollish army- that was the first rumour Harry heard, and it was promptly topped by even more outlandish guesses, not at all deterred by the Gryffindor Prefects telling everyone to pipe down and be sensible. Harry decamped to his dorm the moment he could, but Ron and Neville came after him, stranding Hermione at the foot of the boys' staircase- girls weren't allowed up it, she complained, loudly, and she just wanted to know what had happened- and so Harry and the other boys went back down the stairs to sit with her and Harry told them everything, which consisted mainly of careful elisions over salient facts. Like how he'd cast the Stupefy with so much power, which he now thought must be because of the unicorn blood, and how the beast and the dark man were one and the same and Sirius Black, because Harry himself didn't know what he thought about that, yet, and he wasn't ready to share it.

Still, they had enough to chew over. 'That Quirrell,' Ron said, 'oooh, that makes me right angry! He lied to Dumbledore!'

'Professor Quirrell,' Hermione corrected absently, twirling a curl of frizzy hair about one finger the way Dumbledore often did with his beard. 'And, yes. It does, doesn't it. Make you angry.'

'Harry,' Neville asked quietly, as a pair of sixth-year boys went stomping by them up to the dorms. 'You were really brave. It's not right you got in trouble for it.'

'And for Malfoy,' Ron added. 'How'd you know he was there, anyway?'

'I didn't,' Harry said. His head felt a little better now, but the weariness hadn't left him. It had been a really awful day, between the _Daily Prophet_ and the trolls. And Sirius Black. Sirius Black had saved him, that was twice now at least, and if Sirius Black had been the dog at Crowhill then that meant Sirius Black had been near Harry for months and done nothing to hurt him. 'I just noticed there must be a second troll and went to look. The troll must have smelled him there or something and trapped him.'

'Essence of git,' Ron said, and even Hermione giggled at that, though Harry only rolled his eyes. 'Sorry, I know he's your friend,' Ron sighed. 'But what was he even doing in that loo? It was the middle of class.'

'For that matter,' Hermione wondered, sitting sharp upright, 'where was Professor Snape? When the troll attacked the Potions class, he wasn't in there with them. It was only the students and Miss Tonks.'

'Snape and Quirrell showed up together,' Neville pointed out. 'Maybe Professor Snape came to get Quirrell, like Mr Shacklebolt tried to?'

'But then how did he get past the he-troll?'

'And if they didn't pass the troll,' Harry said slowly, 'how did Quirrell hurt his leg?'

Everyone looked at him. 'He was limping,' Hermione recalled, and chewed furiously at her hair-wrapped finger. 'He was limping, wasn't he. And all over sweat, as if he'd been running.'

'He's always sweating,' Ron shuddered.

'Oh, I wish we knew what it all meant,' Hermione groaned. 'I loathe mysteries.'

'Me, too,' Harry said. He leant his head on the wall. 'This is going to be in the paper, too, isn't it.'

'Probably. Oh, Harry.' Hermione seized his hand as Harry fought the hot rush of tears that stung his eyes. Ron looked away uneasily, and Neville bit his lip but said nothing. 'Sorry,' Harry mouthed voicelessly, and Hermione just nodded. She didn't let go his hand, and though it was a little strange, just to sit there holding someone else's fingers and feeling them a little squished and damp against his own, it was also exactly what he wanted.

* * *

'What are you doing?'

Harry looked up. It was Draco, solitary as he seemed to be these days. Wordlessly Harry tipped up his book so Draco could read the cover. It was a third year Defence textbook, a decade out of date but not so unusual that Madam Pince would think him odd for reading it. Cedric had suggested it for their study group, and Hermione had immediately checked out everything newer. Harry had only wanted to look up the Stunning Spell.

Draco must have concluded that for himself, since he tipped the book back to read, upside down, Harry's page. He took the empty chair across Harry at the table. 'You're turning into a right swot,' he said. 'You can cast the spell already, why read about it?'

'Just curious,' Harry mumbled. Knocking out a troll was proof enough, but the text confirmed Harry had performed the Stupefy correctly. Ordinarily Harry would have been proud of himself. He had never especially distinguished himself as a student at Crowhill, but at Hogwarts he could be good at things, like Charms and Defence. Only he didn't think he wanted to do extra lessons with Quirrell any more.

'You weren't at supper,' Draco said then. 'Everyone is talking about you. It's worse than Quidditch and what happened in the Forbidden Forest combined.'

'I'm a hero,' Harry said gloomily.

Draco sniffed. 'You were lucky.'

'Saved the damsel in distress, didn't I?'

'Me?' Draco squeaked, outraged, and Harry found he had a smile in him after all. Draco huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. 'Whatever,' he said, but he eyed Harry sideways, and didn't seem to really be put out by it. 'They told the school governors. My father's raising a huge stink over it. He said he was going to demand the Ministry double their efforts to capture Sirius Black. They might bring Dementors to Hogwarts to flush him out.'

'Dementeds?'

'Dementors,' Draco corrected. 'They guard Azkaban. Father says they should've been here all along to protect the students.'

'I thought Aurors hunted Dark wizards? What good is a prison guard?'

'You haven't seen them.' Draco gazed at Harry for a long time in silence then. Uncomfortable under that pale stare, Harry pretended to read more about the Stunning Spell, but the long discussion of theory was beyond him and he only understood every third or fourth word. There was a lot about the will to subdue being different than the will to inflict harm, and the gradations of nuance that separated a charm to enhance sleep from a curse to cause unending sleep, all of which seemed to mean he'd only meant to knock the troll out a bit, which was exactly what he'd already known.

'Harry,' Draco said, 'I'm waiting for you to tell me why you let Sirius Black escape.'

Harry let the book fall closed. He rubbed his face. He felt a thousand years old. 'Because he tried to save us.'

'You.'

'Yeah. Me.'

'Was he the man in the Forest? Your dark man?'

'I think so, yeah.'

'But if he's a Dark wizard and he turned on your parents-'

'Maybe he's sorry about it? I don't know. I just know it's all really strange, and there's a lot that doesn't sum up.'

'And it didn't occur to you to let all those Aurors hiding in the school sort it out?'

Harry sat up straight. 'You know about them?'

'Of course,' Draco said scornfully. 'They think we're awfully thick, don't they, not even wearing glamours or taking other names. My mother says that Tonks lady is an Auror, too.'

Tonks was an Auror. Despite his mood Harry felt a twinge of admiration for her. Maybe she could take over his extra lessons with Quirrell? Then he'd get to be with her and still get to learn new spells. He was so caught up in imagining that he didn't notice Draco waiting to be praised for not name-calling Tonks, and when he finally did Draco only rolled his eyes and moved on briskly.

'Does your head always hurt when Quirrell stares at you like that?'

The sudden change in subject surprised him. 'What?'

'You started rubbing your scar as soon as he showed up. And I've seen you do it before, at meals. You always look wretched after your Defence class and those lessons with him.'

Harry felt a bit strange, hearing it outlined so precisely. It was true. He hadn't thought about it quite like that. 'Is that some spell or something I don't know anything about?'

'Not that I've ever heard of. That's twice Sirius Black warned you about a professor, though. Maybe he meant Quirrell?'

'Or Snape,' Harry said. Draco scoffed, and Harry put out a hand to stop him. 'You wouldn't have seen it, but when we got to the dungeons the first troll broke into the Potions class, and Snape wasn't in there. And Shacklebolt tried to get Quirrell to go fight the troll with them, but Quirrell said- well, said something very not nice, and that's why we all went to find you in the dungeons, but then after we ran off Dean says Quirrell left, too, only where did he go all that time between the first troll and finding us in the loo with the second troll? He should've been right behind us, but he was gone at least fifteen minutes. And then he showed up with Snape, who was also missing til then.'

Draco almost spoke, then bit his lip. He sat back, mind clearly churning, but he was better at keeping his thoughts from his face than Harry. Harry couldn't read him at all, except to think that whatever Draco was thinking, it didn't please him.

Eventually Draco said, 'I was crying in the loo.'

Harry took in a small bit of breath. 'Oh.'

'If you tell anyone that, I'll have Crabbe and Goyle stomp all over you,' Draco warned him, 'but- ask me why.'

'Why?' Harry asked obediently. He'd thought Draco had been crying, when he'd seen him in the midst of all that chaos and terror, but he'd thought it was just because of the troll.

'That stupid Weasel friend of yours. He made that crack about my father. About my father being a Death Eater.'

'He shouldn't have,' Harry said, wondering if that was what Draco wanted to hear from him, and glad enough to say it. 'Ron doesn't like Slytherins much. But he did come to help rescue-'

Draco dismissed that with a flap of his hand, and Harry shut up. 'I don't care about Weasel. I care about what he said.'

'People say bad things all the time. You never apologised for what you said to Tonks, I can't very well make Ron apologise for-'

'Harry,' Draco interrupted. 'I was crying because the Weasel is right. My father was... my father was a Death Eater. It's in the papers every once and a while, not as much as you are, but sometimes people bring it up when they don't like my father. I've known for a long time. It wasn't his fault,' Draco added stiffly, his voice rising as if he were trying to smother a protest Harry had made, but Harry hadn't made a single peep. Draco's voice fell again, into a whisper that trembled just slightly. 'He says he was cursed. You-Know-Who. He made my father do things, bad things, under the Imperius. It's an Unforgiveable- you know what those are?'

McGonagall had used that word once. Harry didn't know, exactly, but now wasn't the time to ask. He only nodded.

Draco barely waited on his cue. 'Sometimes,' he said, 'sometimes my father gets these horrible black moods and he sends everyone away, even Mother and the house elves. He goes into his library and he just sits there and won't come out for days. And I know he's thinking about what he had to do when he was cursed. And it's so unfair, it's so unfair people call him that. He didn't want to be one, you know. He didn't.'

Harry didn't entirely know what to say. Other than that he thought Draco sounded more as if he very much _wanted_ to believe that about his father, but still felt a seed of doubt. In the end he only nodded. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

Draco's shoulders slumped. 'You see why it's important,' he pleaded softly, but he was no longer looking directly at Harry. 'For me to be friends with you. It shows people you don't believe my father is guilty. Or that you forgive him. If Harry Potter forgives him, everyone else almost has to, don't they?'

'Draco, I don't want-'

'But you need to. People need you to do things like that. I know how you feel about it, but it matters, don't you see?'

Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses. They felt terribly sore and strained. 'What do you want me to do?' he asked finally.

When he settled the lenses over his eyes Draco was beaming at him, so full of hope Harry couldn't even begrudge it. 'My father says you ought to get a reward for facing the troll,' he said eagerly. 'I know you hate that kind of thing, but you'd let him, won't you? And maybe let the paper take some pictures and write an article about it?'

* * *

The agony of the ceremony ended, to be replaced, Harry knew, with the duller, sustained discomfort of everyone talking endlessly about it for days. For the moment, he was only glad to retreat, and did so with alacrity, running off to the Gryffindor table to squeeze himself in between Oliver and Percy, two people who could be absolutely counted upon to talk about something other than the bloody troll.

He spent an hour listening with half an ear to Oliver's opinion on the Holyhead Harpies all-female Quidditch team- Oliver appeared to feel about their Seeker rather how Harry felt about Tonks- and Percy's newest diatribe against his twin brothers, who had spent the week following the troll attack making a fortune off their fellow students selling stink pellets and exploding snaps which could, they promised, drive off any new beasties that made their way inside the hallowed gates. Rita Skeeter had been angling to get an interview with Harry, but McGonagall had intervened every time, and was holding her off now. The school governors were all eating at the head table, which had been magically elongated to accommodate twelve additional table settings, and they at least were too much on their dignity to stare after Harry. At least until Draco came across the long divide between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables, entirely alone, his head held high at an angle Harry thought was going to give him a crick in the neck, but at least looked impressive.

Draco came to a halt at Harry's back, so Harry twisted in his chair and said, 'Er, hi.'

Draco almost rolled his eyes, but stopped himself, aware of everyone watching. He replied in very stately tones. 'Hello, Harry. How are you this evening? I thought the ceremony was very fine.'

'Yeah... yes. It was fine.'

'Very fine,' Draco stressed.

'Er,' Harry said. 'Yes. Very fine.'

Draco made his peace with Harry's inarticulacy. 'I should like to issue a formal invitation,' he went on, not raising his voice much, and not having to, with everyone around them hushed and watching for Harry's reaction. 'The Malfoy estate would be proud to host you and your family this Christmas holiday.'

Ron gave off a gurgled and mashed protest from a few seats down the table. Hermione had shushed him. Harry hesitated, but not for that. He didn't have the thought to spare Ron's issues with Slytherins or the clever politics of inviting Harry where he couldn't be so rude as to publicly refuse. All he could think was- the entire Wizarding World thought Harry had relatives who were Muggles, who would of course make a very fine show of Lucius Malfoy's new acceptance into the rarefied air of Harry Potter and his half-blood acquaintance.

The main problem with that being, of course, Harry hadn't been anywhere near those relatives in seven years.

Draco showed a sliver of uncertainty as Harry hesitated. 'We have a Quidditch pitch,' he said, less grandly. 'You and I could practise together. It's not as big as the real pitch at school, obviously, but you could bring your Nimbus and Father says maybe I can have a new broom for Christmas too.'

'That sounds fun.' Harry rubbed his hands against his robes. 'I, em. I'll have to ask them. My- family. If they can- want to- come. Thanks for inviting us.' Draco sagged a little in disappointment. Harry faltered, and caved in. 'Maybe I can come just myself?'

'Great!' Draco recalled his airs, and put out a hand for Harry to shake, which he did. 'Excellent,' Draco said loftily. 'I'll inform my father of your generous acceptance. We look forward to having you.' He inclined his head regally, and went proudly back to his table for pudding.

'Harry,' Ron hissed. He pushed Seamus out of the way with one elbow and leant over with his sleeve tailing in custard. 'You could've asked us first, Mum and Dad would-'

'Harry!' Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff popped to his feet and clambered to get at Harry before he'd hardly turned about in his chair. 'Harry, I would love to invite you for New Years-'

'Harry, are you booked for Boxing Day?'

'Harry-'

Dumbledore clapped his hands with such a clatter of concussive force that plates rattled on the tables. The Headmaster did nothing else but stand, and a chastened hush fell. Dumbledore waited a very long minute to be sure everyone understood exactly what they were meant to- sit down, hush up, and eat your pudding, said that ominous silence- and then Dumbledore smiled, swept the skirt of his robe clear, and resumed his seat and his conversation with a governor wearing a towering hat covered with what appeared to be coloured Easter eggs.

Harry bent his head over his trifle, but he no longer wanted the sugary treat. He picked at a sore spot at his thumbnail, and stuck it between his teeth to worry at it. He chewed on nothing but his own finger for the rest of the meal, only barely aware of Oliver and Percy chatting over his head, and darted for freedom as soon as the bell clanged. He didn't wait for anyone as he ran for Gryffindor Tower. By the time Ron and his dormmates had caught him up, Harry was already in bed, the duvet over his head, and the bedcurtains drawn tightly shut. They talked for a while- Harry could hear Ron muttering, but not what he said- and didn't stay. When he was sure they had gone, he peeked carefully- no, all their beds were empty, as it was, after all, barely half seven- and he darted from his bed to his desk, to grab up one of his mechanical pencils and a notepad, then retreating back to his little private den.

 _Dear Professor Lupin_ , he scribbled quickly.


	11. Quiescent Nocturnal Period

_In Which Yule Delivers Tidings; Happiness Pending._

On 12 December, 1986, Harry Potter was summoned to the Head's office.

He knew immediately what it meant, of course. Boys were only called to the Head if they'd done something wretchedly dire. And of course Harry knew what it was he'd done. Everyone knew. Everyone had seen him do it, even if Harry didn't know how he'd done it.

Harry chewed at his thumbnail as he waited in the corridor. It was late, near the dinner hour, and yet he was too much on his nerves to think of food. His cheek still stung with the force of Mr Triscomb's slap at his face. He hadn't meant to, he honestly hadn't meant to- just in the moment of Mr Triscomb hovering over his desk hollering at him for failing the spelling test Harry had wished-

The door opened, and the Head stood there gazing out at Harry. Headmaster Jones was a frightfully tall man, the top of his head brushing the lintel of the doorway, his sparse grey hair combed slick over the shining dome of his pate. His dusty grey suit and precise bowtie washed him of all colour, right to his thin pale lips, which frowned at Harry.

'Stand upright, boy,' the Head told him coolly. 'You will deform your spine by slovenly posture.'

Harry had to cough to get his voice to work. 'Yessir.'

'In,' said the Head, and he stood aside for Harry to slink past. 'Sit down, Potter.'

It was That Chair. Harry had heard about it from other boys. The Head always made you sit in That Chair when you were in trouble. It was plain and wooden, no cushion on it, and it sat very small before the Head's large desk. When Harry perched on the very edge of it he could only just see over the desk, with Headmaster Jones sat there behind it, his hands crossed on the black leather mat and the Crowhill Ledger open beneath his palms.

'You are aware, I suppose,' began the Head.

'I'm so sorry,' Harry blurted. 'I did apologise to Mr Triscomb, I did, I never meant to turn his hair blue!'

'This is not the first such incident, Potter.'

'I don't know how it happened, I swear!'

Jones put up a hand. Harry clammed up tight.

'You are aware,' Jones said, 'that the Wempels have chosen to withdraw their petition of adoption.'

Harry breathed. They'd been nice, the Wempels. Mrs Wempel had worn her Sunday best to meet him. 'Did they hear about Mr Triscomb's hair?'

Jones raised a brow. 'No,' he said, perhaps not unkindly, but in his misery Harry heard only the words. 'I believe they only want a younger boy. It's not an unusual sentiment. But may I suggest you would be wise, Potter, to mind your Ps and Qs. If you should remain in our keeping, as it seems you will, you will have the advantage of an education and, as you come of age, a trade. Look to your own future. If you wait for your fairy tale ending, you will find yourself quite disappointed by life. Do you understand me?'

'I... I shouldn't wait on...'

'Fairy tales do not come true,' Jones told him. 'There are no fantasy godmothers with wands who will make your deepest desires come true. We have only ourselves, Potter. The sooner you learn that hard lesson, the better.'

'Yes,' Harry whispered, bowing his head. 'Yes, sir. I understand.'

* * *

Harry was bearing advice of utmost importance in his mind as he rode the escalating stone stairwell to Headmaster Dumbledore's office.

He was becoming rather familiar with the journey, for a first year, and could wish it otherwise. He was about to ask for a very large favour, and he didn't have great confidence Dumbledore would reply in the affirmative. Under his breath he repeated to himself the way he wanted to ask the question, but as soon as the stairs deposited him at the plain wooden door at the top, his carefully prepared speech flew clear out of his head. He had to brace himself with several deep breaths to knock.

'Enter,' floated back the cheery voice.

Harry obeyed. He stood shuffling there in the doorway, unable to see much in the dim. There were candles floating in mid-air, but more than half had gone out, and there was a faint whiff of smoke hanging about. The tall dark bookshelves felt, to Harry, faintly ominous, looming over him, and on every wall there was a pair of gleaming eyes watching him- the portraits of previous headmasters. Of the current headmaster, Harry noticed nothing.

'Hiyas, Fawkes,' he said at last, determining that much could be safely done. He ventured up the steps toward the bird on its perch. Fawkes didn't look at all as well as the first time Harry had met him. The bird did lift its head long enough for a little coo and squawk at Harry, but then he went right back to ripping out his feathers with his beak. A litter of fuzz encircled the perch on the floor.

'He is moulting.'

Harry jumped. He had no idea where Dumbledore had come from, but he'd come, appearing behind Harry, at a slight angle, and he wore a night cap on his head, and his beard had been braided and tied off with a little blue ribbon. He wore house slippers that pointed up under his long robe like elf's shoes.

'What's moulting?' Harry asked, clearing his throat. 'Sir.'

'A habit amongst even the fire-birds, who cannot shed their old coat for a new without a little hard work. You will have a treat when you see him in his fine spring plumage, you know. He is quite the most handsome of creatures, and will tell you so himself.'

'Fawkes can talk?'

'Not talk quite as you and I are,' Dumbledore acknowledged. He stroked his beard and tugged on the bow at the tip. 'But he can communicate quite clearly, if you know how to listen. I think you might like to learn that. Perhaps we might make a little time for it after Christmas?'

At that Harry recalled Lupin's advice from the urgent letter that had reached him via Percy's owl Errol just this morning. _Don't meet his eyes._ Harry did as Lupin had suggested, and fixed his gaze on the ruff of Dumbledore's collar. 'I would... I would like that. I like Fawkes.'

'And he likes you,' Dumbledore answered. 'But at the moment he will not be giving you his best attention. I will have to substitute. Will you sit with me?'

It was to the high wingback chair that Harry was directed, and there were plenty of cushions on it, plumping themselves as Harry settled. 'Licorice snap?' Dumbledore asked, as he rounded the desk for his own throne-like chair. 'A little warning: they do indeed snap. Chew firmly.'

'Oh. Thanks.' Harry selected one from the bowl. All the candies began to tremble a bit at his touch, and the one he'd chosen bit at his fingertips before he got it to his mouth. He mashed it between his molars immediately, but not before he got a little sting to his tongue. 'Ow,' he mumbled.

Dumbledore smiled at him. Harry jerked his eyes back where he meant them to be. 'We haven't had a chance to talk much, you and I,' the Headmaster murmured. 'How did you enjoy your first term at Hogwarts?'

'Very well, sir.'

Dumbledore let that sit in momentary quiet. 'Did you have a favourite class?' he prompted.

'Charms,' Harry said readily.

'Ah, yes. Your mother was one of Professor Flitwick's finest students. And I understand you perform very well in Charms. Perhaps because you enjoy it more than, say, Potions?'

Harry blushed. 'I'm getting better, sir, even Professor Snape says so.'

'Yes, he does. I am glad the two of you have found some common interest. I have long believed you would be of great service to each other, if you were so inclined.'

'Yes, sir.'

Dumbledore seemed to be waiting on him, and then abruptly decided not to, evidently, because he spoke again. 'Well. Shall we to the point? Why did you ask to see me, Harry?'

'Oh, yes, sir. About the Christmas holiday. You... you must have seen I didn't sign up to go home.'

'It has been brought to my attention, yes. I admit to some surprise. I thought you might prefer a break with your Muggle relatives, out of the limelight, as it were.'

'I don't want people to go looking for them trying to get a photograph, Professor.'

Dumbledore's collar dipped a little, as if he nodded. Harry resolutely forebade himself checking. 'Notoriety is a terrible burden for you. It is my great wish that you do not find reason to become embittered by the experience.'

Harry wondered if that was a warning, to mind his tone. He hesitated, and tried to be quiet and unemotional when he said, 'Professor McGonagall says I can stay at the castle. And my friend Ron is staying, too, and his brothers Percy and Fred and George. Their parents and sister are visiting their other brother in Romania. He's a dragon keeper.'

'Is he? I recall Charlie Weasley quite well. The Weasleys usually do leave their mark at Hogwarts, you know.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I am glad you will have some good company, then. Hogwarts is a place of many secrets, you know, but none so pleasant as those it reveals during the holidays, for those special few who remain to seek them out. But you did not need my permission to remain behind, and so I must presume there is another reason for your presence here?'

Harry grasped for the tattered strings of his speech. 'Yes, sir. See- you see- I don't know if you know Draco Malfoy?' He had himself an unintended pause, and, thus obliged, Dumbledore nodded affably. 'Right. Draco Malfoy. He invited me for Christmas supper with his family. Only I haven't any way to get there, I realised, and anyway I think it's not, it's not, I think it may not be entirely-' Harry hesitated again. He'd had this down when he'd practised in the bathroom mirror! 'May not be entirely wise for me to go unescorted,' he said very carefully, just the way Lupin had written it. 'I came to ask if you would go with me.'

Harry risked a glance upward. Dumbledore's bushy eyebrows had climbed a bit, widening the blue eyes behind the little bifocals. He looked quite surprised, and a little flattered, maybe. His smile was a winking thing, bobbing the plait of his beard over his chest.

'I should be very pleased to,' he replied, and Harry slumped in relief. 'If I may suggest, however, it would be the polite thing to write for the Malfoys' permission to bring an additional guest.'

'I did, sir. I mean, I didn't tell them it would be you, since I hadn't asked you yet, but they know I'll have someone with me.'

'Then it's settled. Have you had an opportunity to purchase any gifts? A small token of esteem is the custom when one visits the home of a prominent witch or wizard. I would be delighted to accompany you to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.'

'I thought only third years and uppers got to go to Hogsmeade?'

'Ordinarily that is true, if we spoke of the trips which take place on school days. You have some time yet until that privilege arrives. But once you are on holiday break it may make a pleasant few hours for you and the other boys.' Dumbledore cannily read Harry's thoughtful look. 'Although a younger chaperon may be able to spare you longer. Shall I ask Miss Tonks, perhaps, to set aside a day for you?'

Harry pinked, embarrassed to be that transparent, and yet not too embarrassed to accept the proposition. 'Yes, sir, if you don't mind.'

'Not at all.' Dumbledore gestured, and Harry rose, wondering if he ought to sort of bow a little, and settling for bobbing his head the way the house elves did for him. 'Harry,' the Headmaster said then, halting him before he'd gone more than a few steps. 'I am pleased at how well you've settled in at Hogwarts. I know the transition between Muggle and Wizarding society can be difficult. You have navigated your way with grace. I expected nothing less of the son of James and Lily Potter.'

Harry almost let that pass. It was just a compliment, and he supposed it was nice to be complimented, but it nagged at him, too, and so he only went another pace or two before he turned back. 'Only I don't see why,' he said, and Dumbledore looked up, going so far as to remove his specs and peer at Harry. Harry dropped his eyes, remembering what Lupin had warned him. 'Sorry.'

'No. Speak your piece.'

'Only I... I don't see why you'd expect that,' Harry said. 'Because I didn't know them. I didn't know anything about them. I thought they were killed in a car accident.'

'I didn't know that,' Dumbledore answered quietly. 'I'm sorry. I only meant that your heritage is strong, and you do their memory proud.'

'Is it true-'

Again Dumbledore let him stand there in wavering silence, waiting for Harry to cue himself rather than urge him on. It took Harry a long minute, wavering between the desire to just spit it out and the knowledge that he was probably being foolish. But being foolish felt better, and so in the end he did say it.

'Is it true you're the one who left me with the Dursleys?'

Dumbledore's wizened hand closed about his glasses. He set them them down, lingering on the small arch of gold that bridged the nosepiece. 'Yes,' he said. 'That is true.'

'They were bad people,' Harry said. 'I suppose it doesn't matter now that I'm at- here, but they were. Are.'

It was Dumbledore who looked away, now. Fawkes had given a little trill, and Harry glanced, too, but when he looked back Dumbledore still sat with his head bowed a little, over his still hands.

'I can only plead that at the time I felt there were no other options,' he said, and he sounded not at all twinkly or cheery now. 'I should not ask your forgiveness, put you on the spot to comfort an old man. But I would hope you will consider it. I took it upon myself to place you in safety before someone else could take you from me. And given the furore over your re-appearance in the Wizarding World, I find myself glad you had any respite from the consequences of your fame. You are a credit to your parents not least because you find this unthinking adoration of your name abhorrent. Had you grown up amidst the noise of clamouring crowds, you might not be.'

Harry didn't know how to feel about that. Except to not like it much, even if it was true. It wasn't a good reason to abandon someone and forget about them. It wasn't a good reason to pick people like the Dursleys, who had given him up and run away and still stole his money and lied about him.

But he'd come for a favour, and he'd got it, and he didn't want Dumbledore to change his mind because things were bad between them, so in the end he swallowed down the block of unease in his throat and said only, 'Good night, sir, thank you for seeing me.'

Dumbledore inhaled audibly. He nodded. 'Good night, Harry. Enjoy the holiday festivities.'

* * *

The holidays were, in fact, as wonderful as Dumbledore had hinted.

Harry and the Weasleys had the castle almost entirely to themselves, barring a few students from other Houses who had elected to stay as well, and they had a great romp of a time exploring the grounds, often with Hagrid the Gamekeeper leading the way. Harry loved the cosy homeliness of Hagrid's Gamekeeper's hut, with its great rough timbers and the healthy cedar smell of everything, and Fang the hound who gamboled like a puppy with the boys, and he loved Hagrid's tales of strange fantasy monsters Harry would get to know in Care of Magical Creatures his second year. Harry would not be put off by Percy's low-voiced caution that Hagrid's prejudices toward anything furred, fanged, and winged were not shared by the majority of Wizarding society: to Harry, it was all magic of the very best kind, and his letters to Professor Lupin were filled with plans to adventure all over the enchanted places of the world where the most fanciful and exceptional beasts hid waiting for his discovery.

His letters to Lupin were almost daily, over the holiday, as a kind of apology for his choice not to spend those weeks back at Crowhill. Lupin had said it was his choice, and laid out both the arguments for and against staying, writing only that he wanted Harry fully informed in that choice. Hogwarts had been penetrated once, and whoever had let in the trolls had not been caught. On the other hand, the staff of Hogwarts would have the same suspicions as Harry, not least thanks to Draco's quick-witted warning that Sirius Black could not have acted alone. (Harry had not yet shared the revelation that Sirius Black was his dog from Crowhill, and had saved his life the day of the troll attack; he had set out the pros and cons of telling Lupin, and come to no conclusions, and that was one minor guilt amongst greater evasions.) Hogwarts, moreover, had protections Crowhill did not: the Order.

Lupin said the Order were a clandestine organisation of Light wizards and witches operating _sub rosa_ to defeat the Dark, and had last been called to rise against Lord Voldemort ten years ago. Most thrillingly, Lupin had told him that his parents had been members of the Order. That was a revelation Harry wished he could share with all his friends, but it would have to wait til after the holiday. Of their group at Hogwarts for Christmas, only Ron knew about the Vee Nicks- now revealed as Phoenix, which made an awful lot more sense- but Harry didn't want to tell him about Lupin, and so Harry dithered. There were so many secrets he wasn't telling anyone he sometimes thought he would burst from it.

Crowhill didn't have the Order, then, but it did have quiet, and the comforts of familiarity, and a retreat from the stress of the term. Harry knew Lupin had seen the _Prophet'_ s revue on his parents- Lupin had even been in it, though unnamed, appearing in a photograph of his father from their school days, in which he turned shyly away from the camera and let James pose and grin at the camera for him. He thought Lupin might miss Harry, but that wasn't one of the arguments Lupin made in favour of Crowhill. Instead he spoke of the relief of being away from the constant attention of the press and the invasively curious student body. A part of Harry- a large part- did long for his previous anonymity. It was strange to realise he'd once thought he'd live and die invisible. In any case, Harry had thought very carefully about his choice, and in the end he'd been swayed by one thing. The night before the last day of classes, Harry had had a dream.

It was half-familiar to him, though he felt only remotely like himself. In the dream he was someone else. In the dream, he was in a dark place very far down, and he was angry and afraid. He stomped about and cursed the darkness and blasted curses at the unmoved stone and when he had worn himself out he wilted to the cold wet ground and put his aching head in his hands. 'Master,' he whispered, 'Master, I cannot. I cannot.'

But his Master was as unforgiving as the stone. 'You will. You must. Without the Stone I cannot complete my return.' The sibilant hiss turned deadly. 'Unless you want me to fail. Do you want me to fail, my humble servant?'

A return that guaranteed his own death. He would be snuffed out of existence, merged out, his soul eroded to a ghostly whisp and blown tattered to the winds. And of course his Master knew his doubts. The fire in his head was cleansing punishment, a blaze that burnt out his weakness and left charred obedience in its wake. 'Anything,' he whimpered. 'Anything for you, my Lord. It is an honour.'

'Then rise,' his master ordered him brutally. 'Rise and begin again. The Stone, man, the Stone is everything.'

Harry woke weeping with the pain. Ron had run for Madam Pomfrey, and Neville had tried helplessly to comfort Harry. Dean and Seamus hovered, fetching him water or a blanket but whispering, whispering, staring at him. Harry gripped fists in his hair and knocked his skull against the hard wood of his headboard, teeth grinding so hard he could taste copper from a sliced tongue. Madam Pomfrey had come bursting in, her dressing gown and cap askew, and grabbed him in both hands to pull him to her lap. She cradled him close as she flicked her wand over him, and then there was a potion, and she was asking sharp questions of the other boys, but Harry was dead to all of that. He sobbed into her shoulder as the heavy numbness of the potion spread through him, and at last abated the pain somewhat. He was still sniffling when unconsciousness took him.

When he'd waked, Professor McGonagall had excused him from his first class of the day to meet with her in her office. He had duly repeated what he remembered of the dream, and then sat before a parade of people who all got their own repeat. Flitwick had gravely complimented his resolve and Snape had scowled at him as if it were somehow Harry's fault, and Kingsley Shacklebolt accompanied Professor Sprout and stood there peering over the portly Herbology professor's shoulder as if Harry were worthy of intense scrutiny, not just his story. Dumbledore said nothing at all about it, only to ask why Harry thought his head hurt so much when the dreams came. Harry had no reply to this, and Dumbledore didn't pursue it. Only Madam Pomfrey actually seemed to worry about his headaches, which were so frequent and painful now. She put Harry under a standing order to report to her immediately when he had one, and gave him a small journal wrapped in soft blue suede in which he was to write a daily report of his meals, his moods, and his judgment of the strength of the headache, scaled from one to six. Even the thought of writing all that in a journal where it might be nabbed up by the _Daily Prophet_ gave Harry a veritable fiver. He stuffed the journal to the bottom of his trunk and resolved only to write in it late at night in his dorm.

It wasn't til the Leaving Feast that night in the Great Hall that Harry had a chance to even think about the content of his dream. It was one thing to go on repeating what had happened, but another to think about what it actually meant. And when he shared this thought, quietly, with Ron, Hermione, and Neville, they all agreed immediately. The search for the Stone, and it absolutely had to be the Philosopher's Stone, given the confirmation Harry had heard in his second dream, had dire ramifications. The Master in his dream, for instance, had Harry worried. You didn't call someone Master these days unless you were someone like a house elf- Master Harry Potter Sir was their favourite title for him, or Master Just Harry Please Sir, but Ron said it was their nature and Hermione said that was atrocious logic and Neville said what d'you reckon it means we call Dumbledore Headmaster? So maybe Master was just a title, but Harry thought about how servile and afraid the man in his dream had been, and how sure he was that he would die if his Master used the Stone to return. Maybe the Master in his dream was or wasn't Voldemort, but if it wasn't, it was someone who had really terrified the person Harry was dreaming about, and Ron and Neville who had both grown up in Wizarding Society agreed there weren't that many evil wizards who could incite that kind of fear.

'Since you took care of the last one, eh, Harry,' Ron cracked, but Harry sat staring into the dregs of his pumpkin juice and didn't laugh.

'Did I?' he asked simply, and that was the decision made. He'd be staying at Hogwarts, near the Stone, and watching closely.

If Lupin guessed at Harry's reasons for staying, he didn't say anything about it. He wrote back to Harry immediately every day, so that his letters got to Harry by nightfall. They had a little game of using different owls, and sometimes Lupin got hold of one that Harry hadn't sent, so no-one could ever be suspicious of the birds swooping in and out of the Great Hall delivering post. A goshawk arrived the morning of Christmas Eve carrying a parcel, and the note on it said Harry was to open it as soon as he liked and only to say it was from a family friend, if anyone asked. With the Weasley boys crowded around Harry did, of course, open it immediately, though they seemed universally disappointed to find it was a box full of clothes.

'Just like Mum,' Fred said. 'Adults are so impractical. They never give you anything _useful.'_

'Clothes are the definition of practical gifts,' Percy said, looking up from _Potions Weekly._

George was nodding in sympathy. 'They've got to him, Freddo. They've made him one of them. Dreadfully misguided, adults.'

'Oh, _practical_ ,' Percy retorted. 'Like dung bombs or Whipple Dripples.'

'Exactly!'

Harry returned to his dorm to put away the clothes. They were new and made a valuable addition to his sparse wardrobe, so he wasn't entirely unappreciative, but he was a bit disappointed all the same, til he got to the bottom of the box and discovered the small separately wrapped bundle. Checking he was alone, though Harry was certain he'd have heard any of the Weasleys if they'd come capering after him, Harry tore open the paper.

He gasped. It was magical photographs, but these weren't like the photographs he'd had from Lupin for his birthday in summer. They were of his parents, yes, but all from when they were young, in school like Harry. And in nearly every picture there was a tall handsome boy with long dark hair and grey eyes, grinning fiercely at the camera with his chin set at a defiant angle, and Harry knew for certain who that boy was. That boy was Sirius Black.

Harry dived for the note that had come with the package. He'd taken for granted it was from Lupin, but looking closely he thought the writing, a calligraphic hand that angled precisely and marched cleanly across the parchment- parchment. It was written on parchment, not paper as Lupin tended to use, living in the Muggle world, and it was clearly done with a quill, not a pen. Harry sat on his bed, his chest tight and warm and uneasy all at once. The clothes and the photographs had come from Sirius Black. And- Harry dove for his trunk, digging til he found the bit of folded brown paper he'd torn from the wrapper on his Nimbus 2000. A glance told him his suspicions were correct, but he compared the note from the Nimbus to the note with the photographs, and it was confirmed. Sirius Black had sent him his broom, too.

From a 'family friend'. That was a clue, too, Harry was very sure.

* * *

Harry was still thinking over all these things when he met Dumbledore in the Gryffindor common room that evening. Harry had put on the best of his new clothes, a proper shirt with little gold buttons and a high collar that itched his neck, and dark trousers with a belt of brown leather to match his brown shoes. He had emptied his rucksack of broken quills and a pot of ink that had dried out and a rather smelly undershirt he'd worn weeks ago for Quidditch practise and packed it instead with his sleepwear and a change of shirt for the morning. Going back for a spare set of socks made him late for Dumbledore's arrival, and he came down the stairs to the sight of the Headmaster laughing heartily at one of Fred's more ribald jokes.

Ron spotted Harry lingering at the steps, and came to him. 'Going?' he said only. He was unhappy with Harry's destination, and had made it known so many times between Halloween and Christmas that Harry was entirely sick of the mulish look he saw coming at him, and refused to look at it.

'Yeah,' Harry answered. 'I'll see you tomorrow. I'll be back for tea.'

Ron hovered a moment. Then in a rush he let it out, as if he'd decided one last go was preferable to the alternative. 'Harry, it's not safe, you know what Lucius Malfoy was-'

'I don't see how I can be safer than with Dumbledore,' Harry pointed out, again.

'Safest would be not going at all. My dad works with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement sometimes and he says there was a raid on Malfoy Manor once and they turned up all kinds of Dark artefacts!'

'When?'

Ron blinked. 'When what?'

'When was the raid?'

'I don't know, a few years ago.' Ron reluctantly admitted the truth. 'During the war.'

'Ten years ago,' Harry said. 'Or more.'

'That doesn't change the fact that-'

'Does it occur to you that being nice to the Malfoys would be a lot smarter than scorning them and treating them like dirt? Maybe Lucius Malfoy did bad things once, but he'll definitely do bad things again if he doesn't have any choice about it because no-one will let him be good, even when he's trying.'

Whatever Ron would have replied was interrupted by Dumbledore, who had noticed them, and maybe noticed, too, it was about to get heated. 'Ah, Harry,' said the Headmaster, gesturing, and Harry led the way in crossing the floor to him. 'Saying your good-nights? Don't forget to hang your shoes, boys, the house elves will fill them with goodies.'

'Hang shoes?' Harry asked, going along because he was glad of Dumbledore's diversion. 'It's stockings, not shoes.'

'Stockings?' George laughed. 'Is that a Muggle thing?'

'Wizards hang shoes, Harry, because to leave clothing for house elves would inadvertently free them from service,' Dumbledore explained.

Harry was aghast at that. 'They're... they're slaves?'

'No,' Ron said, flopping backward on a sofa near the bucket of caramel corn. 'They like serving Wizarding families.'

'But they don't do it freely?'

Dumbledore placed a hand gently on Harry's shoulders. 'I think we've stumbled into a large ethical pitfall,' he murmured. 'I believe your friend Hermione Granger may better inform you of arguments against the service of house elves, but in the meanwhile we should be on our way. Now, Harry, we will be travelling by a method called "Flooing", which involves-'

'I've Flooed,' Harry said, before it occurred to him it might not be wise to admit to that. But Dumbledore only nodded, and produced a small pouch from his belt with the Floo powder. 'We can leave from here?'

'Ordinarily, no, but I have allowed a hook-up for the evening to facilitate our journey.' Dumbledore positioned Harry before the merrily burning brazier of the common room's hearth. 'When you're ready, step into the fire and say "Malfoy Manor, by permission of the host."'

Harry waved good-bye to the Weasleys, sullen Ron included. He wished they'd left it on better terms, but he thought Ron would be happier tomorrow, with Christmas dinner before him. It was going to be extra special this year, Hagrid had promised them, as there was only a small group of students in the castle. Harry faced the fire, threw in his Floo powder, and stepped into the flare of green flame.

Malfoy Manor was immodestly, excessively, intimidatingly grand. It was all over marble, like Gringotts had been, and there was gold and silver filigree and intricately carved pillars and silk wallpaper and parquet floors and rich rugs so thick and soft Harry could barely feel his own footsteps on them and chandeliers- huge chandeliers, bigger than Harry and Dumbledore put together- hanging from ceilings painted in the magical way so that half-naked people lounging on clouds drifted about overhead. Snakes of granite slithered through the branches of stone trees carved along the corridors, real branches arching overhead and the sound of leaves rustling and birds chirping making Harry jump and strain to see. A house elf- Harry started with renewed guilt, thinking inevitably now that there were so many things about the Wizarding World that he just didn't understand- guided them on a long tour through room after beautiful room, and finally into a large dining hall where Harry just had time to crane his neck up at the arches overhead and realise he was in some kind of ice palace before the sound of running footsteps warned him just in time to catch Draco's enthusiastic hug. 'Harry!' Draco cried loudly.

'Oh,' Harry said, and squeezed him back carefully. He hadn't expected that at all, given Draco's usual reserve. Draco beamed at him, seized him about the bicep, and dragged him in toward a pair of very dignified people who stood before a huge long table set with gleaming crystal amid green boughs of holly and bright white Christmas roses.

Once he understood it was something of a show for Draco's parents, Harry relaxed a little. Of course Draco would want to prove he was friends with Harry. And Mr Malfoy did look warmly on them, smiling very congenially as he shook Harry's hand and welcomed him. Mrs Malfoy was a very lovely lady, regal in long white robes with white fur at her collar and cuffs and a small sparkling tiara resting in her crown of thick dark hair. Like Draco, she had grey eyes, and they were like mirrors, reflecting back instead of revealing her thoughts or feelings. Harry didn't know what to make of her at all, almost afraid to shake her hand, though she offered it to him. Harry made a shy, passable hello, and stepped back as soon as possible, dazed and a little overwhelmed by it all. He watched silently as the Malfoys greeted Headmaster Dumbledore.

'Albus,' Lucius Malfoy said, inclining his head, and Mrs Malfoy, her hands falling to Draco's shoulders so that Draco stood between her and the Headmaster almost like a knight protector, bent her knees slightly, her pretty robes crinkling on the floor in a kind of courtsey. Her head didn't bow at all, not a single millimetre.

'Thank you kindly for inviting Harry and allowing me to accompany him,' the Headmaster replied, with a polite accuracy that froze Mr Malfoy's smile in place. 'Your home is as magnificent as I have always heard. It has all the charm of its lovely mistress.'

'Thank you,' Mrs Malfoy said, and her voice was like her eyes, admitting nothing.

'Severus, there you are.' Mr Malfoy spoke to someone over Harry's head, and Harry turned to see who else had come in. It was a figure as dark as Mrs Malfoy was light, right down to the inky eyes that speared Harry. Severus Snape.

'Greetings of the Yuletide,' Snape said, making it sound about as wonderful as curdled milk. 'Lucius. Narcissa. Draco.' Snape nodded to each in turn, and lastly to Dumbledore. 'Albus. I had no notion of your coming, or I would have arranged to travel with you.'

'It quite slipped my mind,' Dumbledore replied, and Harry watched an array of reactions to that from everyone else present, from frosty scepticism- Mrs Malfoy- to incredulity- her much more open-faced son- to a calculating glint from Mr Malfoy. Snape looked least impressed of all, but then Harry wasn't wondering at why no-one believed Dumbledore, because Snape was looking at Harry.

'Happy Yuletide,' Snape said again, mustering a wince that Harry thought might have been meant to be a smile.

'Er, thank you,' Harry answered. 'Happy Christmas, sir.'

'Your Professor has often joined us for the holiday celebration, having no family of his own.' Snape grimaced again as Mr Malfoy told Harry this. 'There are a number of Pureblood rituals associated with the Yuletide which have survived in the traditions of the oldest Wizarding families, though of course being half Muggle, Severus, you no doubt have traditions of your own. It would be quite educational, Severus, if you and young Harry might tell us a few stories of home tonight?'

'You're half too?' Harry asked, finding himself surprised by this. He supposed he hadn't thought about it one way or the other, but had he done he would certainly have guessed Snape to be Pureblood like Ron and Draco, or indeed any of the professors, who used magic as easily as they breathed and never thought much about the students who hadn't their experience of the world.

Snape was giving Mr Malfoy a thousand-mile stare. Mr Malfoy returned it blandly. 'I shall attempt to dredge up something suitably... educational,' Snape said.

'Harry, sit by me,' Draco interjected, breaking the spell, and he grabbed Harry's wrist and pulled him along. 'Father said I could have all my favourites this year but I wanted there to be things you wouldn't have had before, being raised by Muggles and all, so everything is very traditional, I wanted you to really see what a Wizarding Christmas is like.'

'Thanks, that's thoughtful,' Harry said, climbing obediently into the seat Draco imperiously indicated, placed near enough to Draco's chair that they could talk without hollering down the table at each other, as Harry had feared they'd have to when he'd seen the size of the thing. But they would all be at the very middle of the table, with Harry and Draco and Dumbledore on one side and Mr and Mrs Malfoy and Professor Snape on the other, according to the etched silver namecards that stood before each setting, separated only by a daunting array of silverware and glasses and bowls and all manner of implements Harry hadn't the faintest idea how to use.

'Of course it's thoughtful,' Draco scoffed, and leant in to whisper, 'Just watch me. Use whichever one I use.'

Harry gave him a smile of swift gratitude. Draco wouldn't want Harry making a fool of himself, not in front of his parents. He could trust to that.

'Perhaps some favourites of yours as well, Albus,' Lucius was saying, escorting the Headmaster at a more stately pace to his chair. 'The grouse is a recipe quite famous in Godric's Hollow.'

Harry thought the name Godric's Hollow sounded familiar, but Dumbledore's answer distracted him. 'Ah,' the Headmaster said, smiling at Harry as he seated himself. 'Now that's a fascinating story. It went about for hundreds of years that Godric himself created the dish, you know, with sweet-tart cloudberries that ran wild in those days. I once had occasion to do a bit of research, however, and quite to my dismay I discovered there was no record of Godric ever penning any recipes at all. It appears, in fact, to be something of a tourist trap- an enterprising innkeeper invented the dish in the 1600s and attributed it to a Founder who could hardly gainsay him.'

'What's grouse?' Harry whispered.

'It's like chicken,' Draco whispered back. 'It's all right. I like it better than the sauerbraten.' He rolled his eyes as Harry opened his mouth. 'Pork with a sour sauce. Honestly, Harry, what did you even eat growing up?'

'Pot roast,' Harry said. 'Corned beef. Beef stew. Beef, mostly, I guess, and chicken. A lot of chicken. For Christmas and Easter we got iced buns, that was a treat.'

'We have saffron buns! You'll like those.' Draco removed the fancifully folded napkin from his plate and draped it over his lap. Harry copied him. 'Who cooks for Muggles? You haven't got any house elves, have you?'

'We have a cook,' Harry began, and pulled himself up short. Crowhill had a cook, it was true, but he had no idea what the Dursleys had. Then again, they had all those years of Harry's money, maybe they did have in someone to wait on them and serve them and cook and clean for them. He swallowed down his uncharitable thoughts. All the adults were watching, and Harry resolutely planted his eyes on his plate.

'What would you like to drink, Mr Potter?' Mr Malfoy asked him. 'Milk, pumpkin juice, cider?'

'Milk, please,' Harry said, and a cup popped into existence before his place, a delicate goblet with a bell-like cup rimmed in silver. It was full to the brim of icy cold milk. Harry waited for Draco to get his goblet of cider and the adults to get tall flutes of sparkling wine before he followed Draco's lead and had a sip. He wiped his hands on his napkin, after, trying to scrub out the sweat of nerves.

Dinner didn't go too poorly. All the food was very rich, even though Harry's tastes had been much expanded by the plentiful menu of Hogwarts. It arrived in small portions, at least, which was very good considering Draco wanted Harry to have a bite of everything, and Harry was full to bursting long before they had a course of soup- chestnut with Grappa cream- to finish and then were served sorbets in small silver cups no larger than an egg, topped with spun sugar twisted to look like miniature Christmas trees, sparkling with gold. Then there was hot cocoa and Draco's saffron buns and spice cake and a hundred varieties of biscuits. It was all wonderful, and Harry said so, and was rewarded with a small smile from Mrs Malfoy, who said she was glad he enjoyed it.

They 'retired'- Mr Malfoy's word- to a stuffy hot room full of furniture Harry thought looked too fine to be sat on, where a large Christmas tree had been shouldered into the corner and was strung with cranberries and silver floss and real candles and stood over what looked like a thousand presents. Draco dragged Harry to sit on the rug- even that looked too fine for sitting, Harry thought- and handed him a gift wrapped in sparkling paper with Golden Snitches that zoomed all about bouncing off each other. Harry's rucksack was fetched by a house elf, and Harry produced the gift he'd got for Draco, wrapped in a paper of silver snowflakes by the shopowner in Hogsmeade. Their gifts were complimentary; Draco had got Harry a book on modern Quidditch strategy ('Not that it'll help you beat Slytherin,' Draco said smugly) and Harry had got Draco a book on the care and cleaning of brooms, since Draco had been so sure he would get a broom from his parents. Draco became so excited at this that his parents caved with hardly any protest, and he was allowed to go digging in the huge pile of presents beneath the tree for one that came in a long narrow box, decorated with a solemn little sprig of mistletoe.

'Nimbus 200 _1_!' Draco cried ecstatically, hugging it to him with pleasure-glazed eyes.

'It's the test model,' his father cautioned him, looking on indulgently. 'No-one else will have one of these for a year. I had to talk very fast with Devlin Whitehorn. Didn't want to let it out on the market just yet.'

Draco's enthusiasm for his new broom was genuine, and he glowed as he paraded the broom first before his mother, who finally smiled, and his father and Snape and even the Headmaster, who all remarked over its perfection. Harry smiled for his turn, of course, but he couldn't help feeling a little odd, watching Draco preen over his new toy under the loving eyes of his family. Harry had never known what a family Christmas was like, at least not that he could remember, and he supposed he'd never really missed what he hadn't been able to imagine. But this was a dream come true for any boy in Crowhill. The most amazing Christmas, a beautiful tree, all the gifts you could possibly want and then some, from parents who loved you more than anything and only wanted you to be happy.

It was unexpectedly hard to swallow. He folded the Golden Snitch paper, which he'd removed very carefully, and tucked it into the cover of the Quidditch book. He thought he'd like to save it. Draco wouldn't know it, but it was Harry's first real Christmas gift just for himself, not like the charity toy chest filled with Oxfam leavings addressed to 'Boy, Aged Five To Ten'.

He looked up, and found Dumbledore watching him. And Snape.

Harry forced himself to yawn, as if he were only tired. It drew Draco's attention, and immediately he was sprawled beside Harry again demanding Harry admire his broom, and Harry was willing to, even when Draco got a little obnoxious about his broom being a more advanced model than Harry's. He didn't mind a little gloating from a friend.

* * *

Harry was groggy the next morning, waking in an unfamiliar room in a bed that was too soft. He put on his new shirt, another from the package Sirius Black had sent him, and a jumper with thick ribs in red and gold- Gryffindor colours, but also holiday colours, so he thought no-one might notice. He brushed his hair as flat as it would ever go, and opened his door, to find a house elf waiting for him.

'Happy Christmas,' Harry said.

The house elf's bulbous eyes got even wider. It glanced over its shoulder as if it assumed Harry couldn't possibly be talking to him.

'To you,' Harry clarified. 'Happy Christmas.'

'Happy... happy Christmas, Master Harry Potter Sir,' the elf whispered, and then its cheeks flooded red and it clapped long-fingered hands to them. 'Oh! Oh, Master Harry Potter Sir is a great wizard, to speak with lowly house elf!'

'You're not- you're not named Lowly, are you?'

'No, sir! It's Dobby, Master-'

'Just Harry,' Harry tried, thinking maybe Christmas would bring its charm and the name would take, but Dobby only goggled at him and said nothing at all to this. Harry decided that would count as a win. 'I think I'm supposed to go to breakfast?'

'This way,' Dobby mumbled dazedly, and led him to yet another fantastical room in Malfoy Manor for another incredible meal.

Harry wasn't feigning exhaustion this time when, hours later, he said his thank-yous and good-byes to the Malfoys, and followed Dumbledore through a fireplace Floo back to Hogwarts. He'd never realised how draining it could be to be on your best manners without a break, to think doubly over every word and gesture and even to just sit there nodding a lot as adults talked over your head about things you didn't understand or know anything about. He was glad to be spared more of it, but the Malfoys were going calling- it was a Wizarding tradition, Draco said, at least amongst the better families, at which Harry rightly concluded Draco meant his sort of Wizarding families, anyway- and rightly concluded as well that the Malfoys would be using that opportunity to drop casual little hints that Harry Potter had spent the night with them and it had been oh so charming an evening, just their family and him, as if he were one of them already. It would probably be in the _Prophet_ , Harry thought resignedly, but at least he wouldn't have to see the blasted paper over the holiday break. Not even Percy had a subscription, claiming the _Prophet_ was barely more than a gossip rag.

The Weasleys weren't in the common room, though Harry saw from the wreckage of empty candy wrappers and abandoned gobstones and Exploding Snap games that they had been at one point. Shoes dangled by their laces from the mantel over the fire, and Dumbledore gently moved one out of his way so that it didn't lose any of its remaining treats as he stepped past it. Harry smiled to see that someone had hung one of Harry's trainers, and there were treacle tarts and Welshcakes, his favourites, stuffing it to capacity.

'You did very well,' Dumbledore said.

'Thank you, sir. And for coming with me.'

'It was my pleasure to accompany you.' Dumbledore gazed down at Harry thoughtfully. 'You surprise me, in some ways.'

Harry looked up from twining a crinkled parchment wrapper about his finger. 'Sir?'

Dumbledore waved it off, and turned to go. Then, abruptly, he turned back, and Harry came to attention. 'May I ask,' Dumbledore said slowly, 'why you lied?'

'Sir? I didn't lie.'

'Your story at dinner, Harry. When Mr Malfoy asked you about Muggle Christmas customs.'

Harry hardly knew what Muggles who didn't live at Crowhill did. He knew what he'd seen in movies, and he'd told those stories, about making snowmen like in _Frosty_ and meeting Santa Claus at Macy's like in _Miracle on 34th Street_ and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer who lived on the Island of Misfit Toys, which was a pretend island, not a real place, he'd explained to Draco's confusion, and helping angels get their wings like in _It's a Wonderful Life_. Muggle Christmas, Harry had said, was all about pretend, really, because Muggles hadn't any magic to make real talking snowmen or fly Santa's sleigh, and there were no angels, no matter what Mr Thompkins his religion teacher said, because if there were there would be no orphans.

'I didn't lie,' Harry said. 'Not really.'

Dumbledore twined his beard about the tip of his finger. After a moment, it reached a tight twist, and then he released it. He smiled. 'Enjoy your day, Harry. Happy Christmas.'

'Happy Christmas, sir,' Harry repeated, puzzled.

He went to his room first to change, eager to be out of his itchy shirt and into something comfortable. He was so focussed on his task that at first he didn't notice the parcels nestled against the footboard of his bed. And then he did, and then he couldn't look at anything else, because he had presents.

It wasn't as big as the huge pile Draco had had, but to Harry it might as well have been. He touched them reverently. There was one signed Mr and Mrs Weasley, and one signed Forge and Gred and another from Percy and another still from Ron, and one from Hermione and one from Neville and and one from Millie, one from Hagrid and Fang, and one from Professor McGonagall and one from Lupin, and even one from Tonks, which read in an untidy scrawl 'To Harry, Tonks', which was the most wonderful thing. And there was a big squishy gift wrapped in thick parchment that was unsigned, and said 'Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well.' Harry wanted to open that one first, wondering if that was another gift from Sirius Black, but when he shifted all the presents to get at that one, he knocked loose a little tiny gift that wasn't wrapped at all, just a ribbon clipping a small card to a pair of glasses. Harry picked them up, wondering.

The card read, _These are bespelled to adjust your prescription as you age. I expect immediate cessation of all sight-related issues within my classroom. SS._

SS. Classroom. Harry couldn't hardly believe it, but he thought this might be from Severus Snape. Glasses! Who would've thought? He took off his lumpy old specs and put the new ones on. They had a bit more cushion on the earpieces and fit the bridge of his nose better, not sliding down as his always did, and they immediately made everything wonderfully keen. Harry grabbed up the note again just to read it with the new lenses, enchanted with the crisp line of the ink and the little blotches he could see in the parchment where it had been scraped unevenly and the faint shadow of his fingers through the back. He laughed in delight, and then- and then-

And then he took them off and folded them carefully. He wasn't sure what it meant, this gift. He knew what the gifts from his friends meant, but this was something else. And he didn't know how he was meant to feel about it, but what he did feel was- unresolved.

'Harry!' It was Ron. 'You're back!'

Harry plastered on a grin. 'Alive,' he said, and Ron rolled his eyes and looked vaguely ashamed, but then that didn't matter. Ron pounded him on the shoulder and offered him an iced orange bun in a napkin and told him all that he'd missed, from trimming the tree in the Great Hall to carols after dinner to Professor Trelawny the Divination teacher getting tipsy with sherry and predicting all manner of crazy things before New Year, and gifts and Chocolate Frogs and on and on, and Harry listened to all of it quite contentedly and already thinking of how he'd like to do that next year.

And there will be a next year, Harry thought, surprising himself, both for thinking it and for not thinking overmuch of it. He supposed he was past the newness and awe of all of it, after all. He was a wizard, now, and he knew he'd never go back to his old life the same way. And he was glad of it. Very, wonderfully glad.


	12. Ring Out The False, Ring In The True

_In Which Resolutions Are Made._

The problem, Harry decided, was that he'd never before had so much unstructured time to himself.

Well, not problem. It was a lovely problem to have. And much aided by the mysterious gift he'd received from an unnamed donor on Christmas. Lucky thing Harry had been alone when he'd opened it, because it was something and something else again. A cloak of invisibility, like King Arthur had or Jack the Giant Killer. Harry felt bold and brave as he sneaked all over Hogwarts in his cloak, leaving no-one the wiser. It probably didn't hurt that the few people populating Hogwarts were absorbed in their own Christmas toys- the Weasley twins had already caused three explosions and one small flood- but to Harry the days following Christmas were adventures filled with imagined monsters, mazes, daring escapades. He even re-created his encounter with the trolls, except now he had an invisibility cloak that let him clamber all over and jump from the railing onto the stairs- it was as well he was invisible, since he fluffed it, and nearly turned his ankle, but that only dimmed his enthusiasm for a moment- and best of all was the moment he caught Peeves with an _Aguamenti_ spell from within the shelter of his cloak and doused him. Peeves was furious, swooping about shrieking his rage, and Argus Filch came running in shouting about the noise and raising an equal din, and Harry squatted beneath his cloak stifling his giggles, sure he would escape unnoticed.

But the fun rather went out of it when he started thinking of other things. After all, the biggest adventure he'd had at Hogwarts wasn't the trolls, not really. It was the evil wizards in the Forbidden Forest. And having an invisibility cloak would've saved Harry a lot of fright and hurt out there. And thinking about it led to thinking about it again, and again, and soon that was all Harry was thinking about. And his dog who had saved him in the Forest and how the dog was really Sirius Black, who had betrayed his parents who had died because of it but not Harry. Not Harry.

He was feeling confused, and upset, and kind of angry, and tired, very tired, really, when a listless walk along a lonely corridor led him to the Door.

Hogwarts had thousands of doors, of course, some very plain and some very intricate, some that led to more doors and some that weren't hardly doors at all, like the portraits that granted entrance to the Common Rooms. The grand doors at the Great Hall usually stood open, to signify the school was in session. The classrooms that were in use went opened and closed depending on the time of day, but there were hundreds of rooms that no-one went in. Harry hadn't particularly thought about that before. How odd it was to have such a big place with relatively few people occupying it. Had there ever been lots more wizards and witches and warlocks and whatever lady warlocks were? Had the castle ever been like a real castle in the mediaeval times? Harry loved that kind of history, with battles and archers and knights in armour and dashing steeds and sieges and swords. But Harry thought that if Hogwarts had any of that kind of history then Hermione would have already told them all about it during one of her sessions in Latin Revision when she talked ad nauseam about all the books she'd read that you, Ronald Weasley, would do well to pay a little attention to, or whatever it was she said.

This Door was different than all those. For one thing, it wasn't much of a door. It was sort of small, not much taller than Harry actually, and the wood was all warped and old and cracked, so that the boards didn't even touch all the way up. There was a glow of some kind, cool and blue, looking out the gaps, and the big old-fashioned keyhole. Harry shed the hood of his cloak and crouched in front of the greened brass plate. He put his eye carefully to the keyhole. There was a room behind the door, dim except for the source of that strange light. Harry couldn't see where the light was coming from, since everything in the room seemed to be covered with big dusty sheets.

There shouldn't be any reason to want to get in that room that didn't have anything in particular in it. But Harry didn't consider that. He wanted in the room, and that meant he was going to get in there, preferrably without thinking too long or hard about the consequences.

Harry drew his wand from his pocket and fumbled it out from under his cloak. He touched the tip the big old keyhole, and said, softly just case Argus Filch or Peeves or any of the Order of the Phoenix happened to be nearby, _'Alohomora'_.

It didn't work.

Harry stood straight with a frown. He was sure he'd said it right. He tried it again, just in case, but nothing happened. Maybe the wand was hinky? Harry gave it a shake and made some sparks, so that was all right. It was the Door.

Well. The Door had a keyhole. That meant there was a key.

How did you find a key in a castle with thousands of rooms?

'Mrrow.'

Harry whirled. It was Mrs Norris, Argus Filch's mangy cat. She sat at the far end of the corridor, and licked her chops as he looked at her. Her eyes gleamed unpleasantly, as if Harry were a mouse and she was about to spring at him.

'Good kitty,' Harry said uncertainly. 'Good kitty. You want, er-' He searched his pocket, sure he'd felt a candy or a biscuit in there earlier. 'Want an, er, no, that's one of George's Trick Treats, don't eat that. Can I pet the pretty kitty? Want some pets?'

'Mrrow,' said Mrs Norris, and then abruptly burst into a run.

'Oh no,' Harry said, and yanked up his hood just in time. Because Mrs Norris went no further than the corner, where Argus Filch came chuffing to meet her.

Argus Filch. Harry stared thoughtfully at the caretaker as he edged down the corridor past the sweaty puffing man complaining to his cat about the seemingly empty corridor. Argus Filch, who wore a big bunch of keys at his belt. Keys to all the rooms in the castle.

Harry would get those keys, he decided, and not think too much about the possible consequences.

* * *

It was surprisingly difficult to plan a caper.

Harry didn't have many distractions, what with classes out and Hermione not there to exhort him to read his textbooks or write extra-credit essays instead. There were lots of games to be played with the Weasleys, and Tonks was always up for a chat, but he only had to plead a headache to get time to himself, to properly think it out and not just rush into things. A well-planned adventure was even more exciting in some respects than an entirely unplanned one. It started with the idea about the keys, of course. Mr Filch's keyring was big, but Harry quickly realised it couldn't contain a key for every single door in Hogwarts, or Mr Filch would hardly be able to walk for the weight. Obviously the invisibility cloak was going to figure prominently in any plan Harry came up with, but the cloak would only ensure he could sneak, not that he could break into Mr Filch's office and find the missing keys or even determine which one of them fit the door. That was the real problem, he thought, getting the right key to fit the door. He knew about skeleton keys, because the Head at Crowhill had a key that could open every door or lock every door, and at least once a year someone got in a horrendous amount of trouble trying to nick it. It seemed odd to Harry there wouldn't be a special skeleton key for a magical school, but what did he know about wizards? They did lots of odder things, like have house elves when most of what house elves did could be done with regular magic, so far as he could tell. They were frightfully old-fashioned about things like that. So he had to find the right key.

Except the more he thought about it, the less sense it made to try and steal all those keys and then stand there in front of the Door trying them all one by one for hours on end. That was a good way to get caught, even in an invisibility cloak. And what if he couldn't get it done before everyone came back for spring term? It would be exponentially harder with lots of people knocking about. It would be ever so much easier to get just the right key and get on with it.

Ron didn't want to go to the Library, not on holiday, so Harry went alone- well, not entirely alone. A Ravenclaw boy named Terry Boot was there, and nodded to him but otherwise seemed absorbed in a large tome. Harry dithered up and down the aisles, searching fruitlessly for something that matched his vague idea of what he needed. Potions didn't seem very useful, since Harry didn't know how to make many at all and anyway Snape had made a big speech before Christmas about locking up the supplies cupboard so there would be no tricks. And he was only a first year, so most spellwork was beyond him too. He didn't know if there was an advanced charm for opening doors, that seemed like it would be helpful. Or maybe he could Transfigure the lock into something?

'Wotchoo lookin' for?'

It was Boot. Harry jumped, and about-faced. 'Oh,' he said. 'Hi.'

'Hi.' Boot put out a hand. Harry shook it. 'Wotchoo lookin' for?'

'Books,' Harry said.

Boot rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, but wot? Wot abouts?'

'Oh. Books about keys, I think. Or keyholes.'

Boot took that in stride. 'Magic or Mugg-awl?'

'Magical? I reckon magical.'

'Port-awls, gateways, or doors?'

'Doors.'

Boot nodded, eyes narrowing as he thought this over. 'Is the key meant to be magical, too? Keys is a whole separate issue.'

'I don't know,' Harry said. 'It looks normal enough. The keyhole, I mean. Old, like. And I think it's likely to be sort of normal?'

'Normal's relative,' Boot informed him, but didn't ask for further information. 'Right, 'is a feoretical lock or a real place?'

Harry felt he could go this far, if Boot didn't ask for too much detail. 'Real place. Old place. It's an old door.'

Boot tapped his chin with his pointer finger. 'You ever used a card catalogue, Potter?'

'Oh, I have done,' Harry said, brightening at this. 'There's a catalogue here?'

Boot grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him off. There was a catalogue, all right- it was an entire room, all four walls and even the floor and ceiling made up of the small rectangular drawers with little knobs and tiny, hand-written labels in faded ink. Harry gaped, but Boot went right to it, scurrying up a ladder and pulling one of the long thin drawers out to read the cards. He was off in the upper letters of the alphabet, though, so Harry shrugged and orientated himself. There was a subject catalogue, and Harry clattered up the ladder headed for the Ks.

Boot disappeared at some point and loaded down a table with books. Harry came up with an eclectic selection of his own, but it wasn't til he was in the stacks pulling his books that the idea came to him. He stood looking at the book he'd just taken down from a dusty shelf, caught by the illustration on the cover. The Secret Garden, it read, and the picture on the cover was an ivy-covered door, and smack in the middle of the door was a big keyhole, and coming toward it from the right was a big old iron key, with a funny-shaped end.

Harry showed this to Boot, and said, 'Keys always have different ends on them, don't they?'

'Fat's the bit and key wards,' Boot informed him.

'Thanks,' Harry said, though he didn't really care, but Boot was chuffed to be useful. 'So the ends- the bit and the key wards- they'd have to match the lock, wouldn't they?'

Boot had a book on that, and showed him lots of diagrams. 'The lever tumbler lock, which is the most common kind of lock since the Industrial Revolution, greatly improved by Jeremiah Chubb in 1818 when he produced a lock wot could only be opened by its own key.'

'So if I knew the shape of the lock, then I could figure out the shape of the key, right?'

'Dunno, the inside of a lock is wonky,' Boot said dubiously. 'Alvough...' He pondered it, chin propped on his fist. 'Well, have you considered just removing the lock?'

Harry blinked at this. 'Removing the lock?'

'Sure. I mean some can't be removed, right, and some 'ave to picked, but specially on old stuff, and Muggle stuff, you can just remove the lock.'

Harry blinked. 'Boot, that's brilliant.'

'Elementary,' Boot said modestly. 'So... you don't need the rest of 'ese books?'

'God, I hope not.'

'Oh.' Boot seemed a little disappointed by that. 'Well, I'll hold 'em just in case. Still, it were an interestin' diversion.'

'It was,' Harry agreed, and they shook hands again. 'I very much appreciate the help. If I can ever return the favour, do let me know.'

'Really?'

'Of course.'

'You're not wot I spected,' Boot said, in the tone of a man making a firm decision. 'Bettah.'

'I should hope so,' Harry replied, and he went off to ask Hagrid about equipment.

* * *

The application of a flathead screwdriver worked like magic. Harry popped the entire plate clear off the door, and that was that. It swung open at a touch, and Harry hurried eagerly inside, brushing back the hood of his cloak.

The room was wonderful. It smellt dusty and ancient and strange, like a linen closet that hadn't been opened in too long, but better, somehow. Like secrets. Everything in the room was like secrets, still and waiting to be discovered. Harry let the cloak fall, and stepped to the edge of a big blocky thing covered by an old sheet. He took tentative hold of the edge of the sheet, and dragged down. It slid off slowly, tantalisingly. It was a big old desk, with a scroll top and lots of tiny drawers, and Harry entertained himself for a long time opening all the drawers and looking at all the little things inside. There were tonnes of old photographs, of the wizarding kind, but they were faded and browned and hardly moved any more. The people in them wore intriguing outfits, wizarding robes with lots more layers and lace than seemed in fashion now, mostly in black or brown. Their hats were tall and funny, like Puritans wore. Lots of the pictures were of children, and Harry could just decipher from the faded old ink captions that these were Hogwarts students, from long long ago, and their teachers. He even found one of Dumbledore, a young Dumbledore, though he wouldn't have known it but for the caption. He had russet hair, tinged sepia like the rest of the photograph, but he already wore spectacles and his beard was almost as long as it was now, hanging down the chest of his long frilly robe. He winked at Harry over the note 'Class of 1917'. But eventually Harry's curiosity drew him to the next bit of furniture, and he threw another sheet to the floor to explore a pair of trunks with cracking leather straps that crumbled even as he tugged at them. The trunks had lots of fun things, old glass globes like Neville's Sneakoscope and a locket and a pair of knitted gloves that shrunk to fit Harry's hands when he tried them on, and a book of pressed flowers that Harry thought Hermione might like, as it listed all their magical properties in neat handwriting on each page.

Harry made his way round the room, exploring each new revelation at his leisure and tallying up the history of Hogwarts as he went. Old student desks carved with generations of silly doodles and initials of students long dead and gone. A whole trunk full of badly Transfigured objects, loads of broken Christmas ornaments, yellowed linens and single shoes and jars full of dead scarab beetles and a whole heap of rings- he had been at Hogwarts long enough to know better than to try those on, sure as they were to be magical and probably capable of transforming him into horrible twisted things. He did put on a funny hat that looked like the Sorting Hat, but it only grumbled in his ears in a faint funny accent, almost like English and German jumbled up together. He was still wearing it when he pulled the sheet down from a tall bit of furniture and discovered, at last, the source of the strange blue light. It was a full-sized mirror, and Harry stopped in his tracks, his breath stolen right out of his body.

He wasn't alone in the mirror's face. He was standing there, in the silly old hat and his dusty pyjamas, but to either side of him stood an adult, a man and a woman.

Harry twisted about just to check, but no-one had sneaked into the room whilst he played, distracted. He was alone.

But not when he looked at the mirror. When he looked at the mirror, there were people next to him. Harry laid a hand on the mirror, feeling cool glass, not human flesh. But there they stood, looking down at him and smiling.

Harry tried to speak, and couldn't. He swallowed as best he could. 'Mum,' he whispered. 'Dad.'

His father smiled at him. Mum didn't, because her face looked so sad. Her eyes were red, and she shook her head, and she put her fingers to her lips, and her hand shook. Harry, she mouthed, and that was his name, his name on her lips.

Harry burst into tears.

* * *

His parents didn't seem to mind him chattering their ears off. He told them lots of things, everything he could think of really. All about Crowhill, and about Professor Lupin and about finding out he was a wizard, and how much he liked Hogwarts and his new friends and being magical. And how much he missed them, and how he'd always thought of them. How he'd used to draw them, in Arts til Arts got cancelled because of cuts and then just in his free time, at least til he'd got older and it became too hard to imagine anymore what they were like. Til he'd got those photographs from Professor Lupin, and suddenly it had all been revived for him, the hope and the imaginings and the good dreams, not just the bad dream about the car crash. He told them about everything, the trolls, and the evil wizards, and even about Sirius Black, and how he didn't know if Sirius Black were really evil too or if maybe he was a good sort. His dad shook his head when Harry talked about Black, and gave a wry sort of grin when Harry said he'd read in the _Prophet_ how his dad had a bunch of friends at school, like Black, and they were supposed to be quite the pranksters. But then Harry's dad was shaking his head, because Harry said he reckoned his dad might be disappointed in Harry. Harry wasn't much for pranks, really. He was more used to being pranked on. No-one at Hogwarts pranked him, because here he was Harry Potter, but when he went back to Crowhill he'd be just Harry again, and Harry was nobody special or famous or intimidating or important.

'But it's okay,' Harry told them earnestly, as his mum smiled wistfully down at him. 'I don't mind being just Harry. Honestly it's... it's... it's sort of wretched here, that bit, I mean. I mean... I mean being famous for you dying. I'd do... I'd do anything to be just Harry and still have you here, instead.' He drew a deep breath. 'I love you,' he said, the first time he'd ever said that in his whole life, and the feel of it welled up in him like- like- like the sun bursting over the horizon, filling the sky with light.

* * *

Harry made several trips to the room, utilising the invisibility cloak to transport a number of items that made his stay there more comfortable. Ron might've noticed if Harry stripped his bed of duvet and pillows, so Harry took them from another dorm instead, knowing the house elves would launder anything he got dusty. The house elves were wonderfully supportive, actually, giving Harry an entire basket of food so he could stay in the room with the mirror and his parents all day and all night and all day again. Harry made a periodic escape for the necessity of the loo, using his invisibility cloak for sprinting trips up the corridor and down the stairs and round the corner and back again, teeth brushed and bladder momentarily relieved. He was getting a bit overconfident in his sneaking, however, and it was on his third trip out that he nearly gave up the game for good.

Quirrell was in the corridor. And Snape.

Harry's first instinct was to run the opposite direction. But the opposite direction was back to the loo, and Harry wanted to get to the mirror, which was on the other side of the two professors. He gnawed his lip. Decision made, Harry tip-toed closer, hugging the wall and trying to make absolutely no noise.

Snape was in quite a mood. He was stalking back and forth, and Quirrell was wringing his hands and moaning softly. 'Oh, stop that,' Snape snapped at him. 'You're making a scene, and I haven't the patience for it.'

'I d-don't know why you- you-'

'Because I'm not an idiot. You stink of Dark Magic.' Snape turned on his heel and folded his arms over his chest. 'Quirinus. We haven't been much thrown together, you and I. I think you know I despise puling cowards, and on your better days you don't rank much higher than a trembling dandelion one moment from blowing to the winds. Or do you? I've heard you had mighty brave words, the day of the troll attack. Harry Potter himself begged you to run to the defences, and what did you do? You denied him. Brave, Quirinus. But even braver?' Snape took a step closer to Quirrell, who was, indeed, trembling. Another step brought them within arm's length, and another step after that put them nose to long nose. 'I know what you said, Quirinus,' Snape breathed. _'They're only Slytherins.'_

'I d-don't k-know-ww-wha-what y-y-you-'

'My Slytherins, Quirinus. My House. My children. However brave you are, Quirinus, I don't think you're brave enough to face the combined wrath of myself and very powerful, very angry parents only ten years removed from their Death Eater days.'

'S-severus.' Quirrell looked like to faint. He was white as a sheet, sweating so hard it dripped down his cheeks.

'Or maybe you are that brave? Brave enough, aren't you, to bring in two trolls for Dumbledore's little set-up downstairs. Strange you'd be too afraid to chase them down in a confined space.' Snape took just the smallest step in, to whisper against Quirrell's ear. His breath caught in his throat, Harry crept closer, straining to hear. 'But you don't have to be brave to be clever. You know as well as I do that ridiculous obstacle course the old man's concocted is nothing but a distraction. He'd never put the stone in so obvious a place, not with so many of us in on the secret. Clever of you, Quirinus, saying just the right thing to send Harry Potter into danger. Clever, clever man. Draw his eye. He'll watch the wrong target, and next time, next time, you'll slip away unnoticed, unwatched.'

'Not so clever as y-you,' Quirrell muttered, cringeing away and darting sidelong looks at the dark man looming over him. 'We c-can't all cosy up to P-potter. He won't be f-fooled by you. He'll never b-believe you l-love the boy.'

'Dumbledore's a Gryffindor through and through.' Snape pulled back with a little sneer. 'How could anyone fail to love Potter? Dumbledore thinks the sun shines out his arse. You made a mistake, alienating Potter. One word to the Headmaster and he'll have you thrown in Azkaban to pacify the boy.'

'Wh-what do you w-want?'

Snape smiled coldly. 'Half seems fair,' he said.

'Half!'

'Or you can keep fumbling your search and coming up with nothing,' Snape told him coolly. 'I imagine your buyer is getting impatient. Merlin knows it's painful enough from the outside.'

Quirrell was wavering. 'Well... well... w-what w-would you do di-differently?'

Harry was interested in that answer as well. Unfortunately, he was so interested he wasn't watching where he was going, and he bumped right into the big gold frame of a portrait, jostling it. Harry grabbed at it quickly, but the old lady slumbering in the painting jolted out of her snores with a bellowed 'I say, sir!'

'Who goes there?' Snape demanded, whirling about with his wand casting a harsh glare over the corridor. Harry froze, heart thundering, as Snape peered into every shadow and came to stand right in front of Harry, bare inches away, black eyes narrowed in concentration as he silenced the portrait with a spell and felt carefully about the edges of the frame. Harry swayed back to avoid his questing hand, holding his breath compulsively.

'Let's continue this in a more private setting,' Snape murmured, and turned back to Quirrell, but Quirrell had taken advantage of his distraction and was vanishing in a swirl of robes down the stairs. 'Damn the man,' Snape said with exasperation, and took off after him.

Harry exhaled shakily. That had been- that had been a lot of things, and all of them bad.

His mum and dad were patient, listening to him repeat what he'd overheard. Harry fiddled with his glasses as he told them about it. His glasses from Snape. He had glasses from Snape, and a broom and new clothes from Sirius Black, and an invisibility cloak from someone unknown. Gifts from the Malfoys didn't look so dangerous next to all those things. At least he knew the Malfoys wanted him to like them. 'Well,' he said, I suppose that's what the others want, too. It's what pretty much everyone wants from me.'

His father quirked a brow.

'It's weird,' Harry said. He put the glasses on so he could see as much as possible of his parents' faces, every little hair and freckle. 'It's weird,' he said, 'because all this time I always thought I was supposed to get other people to like me.'

'Well, talkin' to yourself isn't the best start on that.'

Harry scrambled to his feet, instinctively stepping protectively in front of the mirror and his parents inside it. It wasn't Snape or Quirrell, his first panicked thought. This was worse. It was Tonks.

'Hiyas, cutie.' Tonks whistled as she came in, peering around with bright curiosity. 'Is this the Room of- er, how'd you get up here? I thought you were feeling poorly...' Her voice trailed off, her eyes going round as saucers. She had seen the mirror.

Harry hovered uncertainly. 'It's a secret,' he said. 'It's a secret, please, Tonks, it's so important, it's the only time I've ever been able to see them.'

'You can see them too?' She sounded dazed. She trod right on the invisibility cloak and Harry's impromptu bedding without noticing.

'It's a magic mirror, I don't know how it works, but please, Tonks, please don't tell.'

'Harry...' She fumbled a hand to his shoulder, gripping him by the collar. 'Harry. You see it, too? The Minister, and Mad-Eye's there, didn't know the old fool could look proud.'

'What?' Harry glanced behind him at the mirror. His parents were still there. 'I don't see the Minister. Minister Fudge?'

'Yeah, he's handing me-' Tonks blinked, hard, and shook her head as if to clear it. 'Harry.' She forced herself to look at him, though her eyes seemed to want to return to the mirror. 'What is this mirror? Does it tell the future?'

'The future?' Harry was nearly excited by this, but almost as soon as he began to feel it he knew better. 'It can't do,' he said softly. 'My parents are dead.'

'Your.' Tonks swallowed hard, and this time she knelt before him, taking his hands in hers. 'Harry, you see your parents in the mirror?' She looked about the room, and this time noticed his bedding and the food basket. 'Harry, you've been here all holiday? I thought you were feeling poorly, the other boys were worried sick.'

Harry squirmed uneasily. 'Not all holiday,' he qualified. 'Just since I found the Door. Well, since I got past the Door. There was a bit with the Library before that.'

'Get your things. We're going back down to the dorms where you should be.'

'Tonks! No, please, I just want to talk to them-'

'No,' she said severely, and didn't wait for his agreement. She bundled up all his bedding, rolling the cloak up with it, and she grabbed him when he tried to squirm away. 'Harry, listen to me, magical artefacts can be dangerous. We see this kind of thing all the time in Au-' She cut herself off, blushing furiously.

'Potions assisting,' Harry said flatly.

'Yeah,' she finished meekly. 'Um. Look, it's dangerous, that's all, and it would be irresonsible of me to leave you up here. We're going back to the dorms, and if I hear from anyone you've tried to get back up here- what did you do to the lock?'

Harry, dragged after her so fast he stumbled and then slammed right into her when she stopped to gape at the door. Harry hadn't got round to fixing the broken lock. Or returning the screwdriver to Hagrid. Tonks scooped up the abandoned toolbag and spelled the door shut with a charm Harry had never heard before, producing chains that bolted the door closed far more effectively than an antique lock. Harry squawked in dismay, but that only made Tonks haul him along grimly at such a pace that he had to skip to keep up with her longer legs.

Tonks at least didn't share his disgrace with the other Gryffindors back in the Common Room. She marched him up to his room, and put Percy on watch duty, which ensured not only that Harry wouldn't be sneaking anywhere but also that Harry was forced to talk about schoolwork, since Percy correctly interpreted her grim demeanor as proof Harry was in trouble, and therefore deserving of punishment. He kept up an awkward lecture about the spring term syllabus for History of Magic as Harry curled on his bed, trying to hide tears of frustration in his pillow. Harry felt a tentative pat on his back, and sniffled. Percy just sat quietly on the edge of his bed, then, his hand warm on Harry's spine.

They were still like that when a knock at the door announced the Headmaster.

* * *

Dumbledore talked for a long time. He told Harry all about the Mirror of Erised- it had a name, though Harry hadn't even noticed the writing in the frame, so concentrated as he'd been on his parents' image in the face. And it was only an image, Dumbledore said. They weren't real, not even as real as ghosts. It was only a reflection of Harry's truest desire.

Dumbledore said other things too, about how Harry's desire to see his parents was noble and understandable. That it was a very selfless desire, not to want riches or fame or any of that kind of thing, but to just want the simplest happiness. Harry listened with one ear, nodding in all the places Dumbledore paused, but he was too miserable to say anything. Because the one thing Dumbledore was at pains to make Harry understand was that the mirror was going to go away.

'I don't do this to hurt you,' Dumbledore murmured. 'And, in truth, it pains me to do it at all, when I can plainly see how deeply this affects you.'

Harry found it almost too difficult to swallow. He took off his glasses to wipe them- tears had been falling onto the lenses because his head was so bowed. Snape's glasses. Harry flung them away and scrubbed viciously at his eyes with his knuckles.

Dumbledore retrieved them. He placed them gently on the duvet between them. 'These are lovely. They're new, aren't they?'

'I don't want them.'

'No? I was given to understand your old glasses might be inadequate.'

'You shouldn't trust him. He's a bad man.'

Dumbledore paused again, and Harry almost nodded by habit. He scrubbed at his clogged nose.

'I saw them,' Harry said. 'Quirrell and Snape. They're the ones after the stone.'

'Saw them?' Dumbledore repeated quietly. 'Another dream?'

'No. In the school. I heard them. They talked about the stone. Snape says he wants half.'

'Professor Snape,' Dumbledore corrected him, and sat back with one finger tapping slowly on his knee. 'That is a very serious charge, Harry.'

'It's not a charge. Snape said it. I heard him. And that means Quirrell is the one who's been looking for the stone.'

'Harry.'

'I think it's stupid you don't believe me after making me tell everyone and the Minister about the dreams.'

'Mr Potter.'

Harry clammed up. 'Sorry,' he tried to say, but it stuck in his throat. Mutely he put out his hands.

Dumbledore took them tentatively. 'I'm sorry, I don't understand.'

'So you can thrash me. Sir.'

Dumbledore sighed. 'Your life has not been what I hoped, Harry. What it would have been, had you been raised by your parents.' He picked up Harry's glasses, and tucked them between Harry's palms. With that, he rose. 'I must ask you not to seek out the Mirror of Erised. Men have wasted away before its pane, bewitched by the vision of their greatest wish come true. I would spare you that fate.'

'The stone-'

'Is safe,' said the Headmaster. 'Trust me.' Dumbledore softened his tone a bit, and added, 'It will be safer still for your warning, Harry. I hope you will bring me news of anything else you should hear, or dream.'

'They said the obstacle course was just a distraction.'

Dumbledore's beared bobbed along his chest. Harry didn't need to be told not to look him in the eye. He didn't want to, at all.

'Sometimes a distraction is meant for other purposes than the obvious,' Dumbledore replied, and left him with a gentle touch to the crown of his head.

* * *

Harry folded away the invisibility cloak to the bottom of his trunk. It didn't seem as fun now, and anyway Percy was very serious about keeping an eye on him, and Tonks showed up every day before Harry was even awake, to escort them to the Great Hall for breakfast and to mind them at whatever they planned to do for the day. Ron asked Harry pestering questions about what he'd done to get in trouble, relenting only when Harry snapped at him. Harry managed to get away to the Library, where he sat quietly with Boot, who mostly read and only occasionally talked to Harry, sometimes to point out something interesting in a book, once or twice to make a comment about Quidditch, for which, he said, he had a rabid passion. Harry supposed to a Ravenclaw a rabid passion could be better fed with books than talking to someone who actually played the game. That was all right, though. Harry felt like being quiet, and Tonks let him alone as long as he was occupied with Boot.

New Years was subdued, after the party atmosphere of Christmas. The three Hufflepuff students who had stayed hosted a small celebration in their Common Room. Theirs was in the Basement, which Harry didn't quite understand because Hogwarts had dungeons, too, but he didn't think it was polite to correct a name others had chosen. Otherwise he quite liked the space; it was earthy and somehow sunny, even though it was grey out of doors and basements were meant to be under the houses anyway- that was magic for you. Professor Sprout taught them all to make Leaf Bread, using special little irons that cut designs into the wafers, and even the two Slytherin seventh years who'd stayed for the hols joined in and munched along. The twins played a masterful game of Exploding Snap, and Ron was extraordinarily patient in his ongoing attempt to teach Harry Wizarding Chess, nevermind Harry was awful and lost every time. Boot brought a book to read, of course, but when Professor Flitwick offered to show them a special charm no-one else in school would learn, Boot happily abandoned reading for learning, and Harry abandoned chess for something he was actually good at, and soon everyone was hard at work charming corks from the apple cider jugs into good luck amulets to wear on strings.

Still, Harry was ready for the holidays to be over. He went with Hagrid to greet the returning students at the train station- no boats, not for the second term- and stood anxiously til Neville's head came bobbing out of the crowd, and behind him Hermione's bushy hair, and Millie and Draco and everyone else.

'Hiyas, Harry!' Neville grinned ear to ear. 'Happy New Year! Thanks so much for my Christmas gift.'

'Oh, thank you for my book, Harry, it's one I haven't read yet,' Hermione said excitedly, and Millie lifted her hair to show Harry she was wearing the earrings he'd got for her, and Draco was too busy showing off his Nimbus 200 _1_ to do more than smirk knowingly at Harry, everyone was chattering as if they hadn't just been hours on the train trading the news. Harry basked in it. It was enough to make him forget, for a little while, about all the other things on his mind, and he welcomed it gladly.

'I can't wait for classes,' Hermione sighed happily. 'I've been practising all my spells as well as I could do without being able to use my wand at home, and I'm almost certain I didn't forget anything-'

'Aw, give it a rest, Granger, we don't even have classes til Monday,' Pansy Parkinson complained, but Cedric Diggory, hauling along a bag for a Hufflepuff girl, called out, 'That's the spirit, eh, Hermione,' and Pansy grudgingly gave over that Hermione had been clever to keep practising all holiday.

'I expect Muggleborns need all the practise,' she added, 'not being brought up with it.'

'Hope Crabbe and Goyle've been practising their English then,' Harry muttered, and Draco guffawed.

Millie seized Harry by the arm and drew him off. 'Did you miss us, Harry?'

'Yeah,' Harry said. 'Loads.'

'Are you all right?' Hermione was not to be left out, and she clambered up right behind Harry and Millie as they queued at the foot of the platform. 'Is it your headaches?'

'No,' Harry said. Hagrid had promised him a real treat- the carriages were special, he'd hinted- but Harry couldn't bring himself to join the speculation going on about him. His mood was too low. Suddenly needing a bit of air, Harry pulled his arm gently from Millie's grasp and excused himself. He stood off to the side a little, staring across the snowy expanse of Hogwart's grounds, at the castle all lit up so beautifully there at the top of the hill, with the Black Lake gleaming so prettily beneath it.

An unexpected sound had him looking sharpish into the dark of the bushes. A dog's yellow eyes looked back at him. Sirius Black whoofed softly, and in the shadows wagged his tail.

'Stay safe,' Harry whispered at him, and then- just on a moment's inspiration, or a moment's impulse, maybe- 'Meet me tonight? Outside Hagrid's hut? He'll be busy all night, he's said, he won't know we're there. I can get away after supper.'

The dog barked his agreement. Suddenly feeling better, Harry grinned into the night. No-one had banned him from just getting information, after all, and he was ready to start asking questions on his own terms.

'Good,' he whispered, and let Millie call him back as the carriages arrived.


	13. Long Conversation

_In Which Important Words Are Spoken._

'I brought you a bit of everything,' Harry said, sliding the plate carefully across the grass. Sirius Black twitched towards it, then hesitated, and then grabbed for it all at once, hunching over it protectively. He tore into the chicken much as he might have as a dog, gnashing bone and meat indiscriminately, dirty fingers scooping up mouthfuls in a desperation that made Harry glance uncomfortably aside. He was terribly thin, and the filthy corduroy coat he wore over his ragged clothes made him look a bit like a scarecrow, all sticks for limbs. He smelled something awful.

'Pumpkin juice,' Harry remembered then, and fetched the jug out of his satchel. Black grabbed for it, and for a moment their hands touched. 'It's all right,' Harry said, and Black dropped his eyes, a flush staining his gaunt cheeks.

'Thank you,' Black whispered huskily. 'You're being very kind.'

'You saved my life.'

Treacle tart smeared Black's scraggly beard. He licked his knuckle of sugar. 'I didn't... I didn't mean to deceive you,' he said, slowly, as if the words were hard, or maybe the thoughts behind them. He darted a glance up at Harry and away again. 'I just wanted to look after you. I knew they'd come for you.'

'Who?' Harry judged it safe enough to sit. They were well-hidden in Hagrid's vegetable patch, without even the glow of a wand to draw attention to them, and the castle seemed very far away, all the way up the hill, and the night air was cool and quiet. Black made a bony pile of knees and elbows, collapsing into a tailor's seat with the plate cradled in his lap. Harry toyed with the tip of his mother's wand, hidden up his sleeve, but he didn't think he'd need it. It was just a gut instinct, but he didn't think Black wanted him hurt, not after all he'd done to protect Harry. And he didn't want Black running off, either, before he had a chance to ask his questions. 'Who would come for me?'

'You-Know-Who's people,' Black said. 'Dark wizards. Not all of them went to Azkaban- I should know.'

That was as good a place to start as any. Harry scrubbed damp palms against his trousers. 'Right. So. Dark wizards... you're not a Dark wizard, then?'

Black's chest rose and fell rapidly beneath his tatty shirt. 'No,' he said hoarsely. 'No, I'm not. I swear by the Light, by my honour, by my troth, and by the love I bore your parents. I did love them, Harry. James was... James was like a brother to me. A brother in everything but blood.'

Blood was awfully important to wizards, Harry had realised, but that made Black's oath all the more impressive. He didn't think a wizard would make a claim like that if it wasn't true. 'You were my godfather.'

'Yes.' Black's chapped lips twisted, and he clenched his fingers on the rim of the plate. 'I was a bad choice. Not because I betrayed them- I didn't. I would never. But I was stupid. I was bloody stupid, and bloody stubborn, and they paid. They paid.'

That had an almost sing-song quality to it, like a nursery rhyme Black had repeated so many times it was rote by now. Harry shivered uneasily, stroking the tip of his wand. It was near if he needed it.

But then Black looked up, into Harry's eyes, and the momentary madness faded. He looked terribly sad, instead. 'It should have been Remus,' he said.

Harry licked his lips. 'Professor Lupin?'

'Hufflepuffs,' Black said, with a ghost of a smile. 'Loyal to the end. More fool me for forgetting it. I thought it was him, the traitor. We knew there was a traitor and I thought- it doesn't matter why. I let myself be convinced because I wanted him to be the one. He was always the clever one, you know, always the perfect one. The best marks in school. Prefect, obvious choice. Teachers' pet.' He shook his head faintly. 'I wasn't surprised to find him near you. He's good to you? Of course he's good to you.'

'He's good to me.'

'He's a teacher at your school, isn't he? Is that why you're at Crowhill?'

Harry hesitated over that landmine. 'Crowhill is... Crowhill isn't just a school,' he said at last. 'It's for boys. A home for boys who haven't got real- other- family.'

Black's brow furrowed. 'There was a sister. Wasn't there? I was sure there was a sister.'

'I don't- I don't want to talk about that. Yet.' He added that hastily, when Black's face froze up tight. 'I'd rather hear more about you. About what happened, if it wasn't you who betrayed my parents.'

'Peter,' Black spat, as if the name were synonymous with the most vile, awful evil imaginable. 'Peter Pettigrew.'

Harry knew that name. It had been in the Halloween edition of the _Prophet_ , the one with the revue on the murders of the Potters. Harry said, 'You killed him.'

Black barked like a dog- Harry realised only belatedly that he was laughing, actually. It was bitter as coffee grounds. 'I very much wish I had,' he grated. 'With all my heart I wish I had done, Harry. It was him. He betrayed us all.'

'He said you did,' Harry pointed out, 'and he's dead, either way, so it's really his word against yours.'

Black's hand shot out. Harry flinched back, but he wasn't fast enough. Black's fingers clamped about his wrist so hard he cried out, but Black didn't ease up in the slightest. Harry felt bone crunching as Black leant over him, foetid breath hot against Harry's cheek. 'It was him,' Black hissed, 'it was the rat, Harry, it was the rat did it, he betrayed James and Lily, he was the Secret Keeper-'

Harry's wand found the throbbing vein in Black's neck. 'Get away,' Harry whispered. 'Get away, now.'

They stared at each other. Slowly, incrementally, sanity returned to the wide eyes that glared down at him. Sanity, and shame. Black let him go, and Harry scrambled up and away, cradling his throbbing wrist to his chest, his wand extended and every jinx he knew dancing through his head. But Black only put up his hands, kneeling there in the crumbs from his discarded plate and the dirt and the dark, and miserably bowed his head.

'Forgive me,' he pleaded, in a convincingly broken voice. 'I didn't want to hurt you. I just- I just- even thinking of the rat- I'm sorry, Harry.'

'It's okay.' Harry hesitated, but in the end he put his wand down. Black was tearing at his lank hair, scraping his cracked fingernails into bloody furrows in his cheeks. 'It's okay,' Harry said again, more loudly, just to be sure Black could hear him, but it wasn't til Harry steped up to him and put his hands on Black's cheeks to stop him that Black looked up, lip quivering and eyes wet. 'It's okay. Don't hurt yourself.'

'I watched your first game,' Black whispered, staring up at him. 'Quidditch. You're a natural. Like your dad, up there in the air.'

'That's why you were in the Forbidden Forest? You came after me.' Harry let go slowly. 'How did you get in the castle the day of the troll attack?'

'We knew more about Hogwarts than the Founders who built her,' Black said. A querelous bit of fun curved his mouth. 'At least we fancied that. Your dad and me and Remus. The rat.' He swallowed thickly, smearing his sleeve across his face. 'You shouldn't doubt Remus, though. He's had the Order about sealing off everything they can. You- you know about-'

'He told me. The Order of the Phoenix.' Harry thought it might be safe to sit again, and did, giving himself a little space from Black, who watched him go anxiously. 'I thought it was Stevie Nicks, at first.'

'The Fleetwood Mac lady?'

'You know who that is?'

'Remus had it for her in the worst way. He's always been an old man trapped in a teenager's body.' Black shook his head. 'He had this poster... feathered hair all over the place, she was in some kind of weird hippie wedding dress.' He gave a dusty chuckle. 'Don't know who he thinks he's fooling.'

'Mr Black? Can you tell me... please don't get mad again. It's okay. I just wonder if you could tell me about Pettigrew? You said he was the Secret Keeper?'

'Do you know what that is? Has anyone told you that part?'

'I know people say it like it's important.'

'It refers to a ritual. It's a way for people, people who are in danger, to hide.' Black's hand came down on a carrot, and he looked at it as if he were astonished it even existed. He licked it off his palm. 'It's called the Fidelius. One person, a person who stays in the open, agrees to keep the Secret for the people who stay in hiding. When we knew your parents were in danger, it was decided they should use this ritual. And I was your dad's best friend, and I was going to be his Secret Keeper.' He closed his eyes, fingers locked so tightly together that his knuckles whitened. 'It should have been Remus. He would have kept their Secret, would have been- unobtrusive. Even doing what he was doing, no-one would have thought it was him. But we were all so paranoid, we were so afraid- so afraid all the time. I thought I was the one who came up with the switch, but I realised after the rat had led me to it. Playing on all my suspicions, winding me up again and again. All of us. It was so easy to turn on Remus.' A fat tear fell from his eye to his knuckles. 'Can you imagine the shame, Harry.'

Harry coughed to clear his throat. 'You switched?'

'With the rat. I thought- I persuaded Jamie- I persuaded him he should put it out I'd taken on the Secret, right, but secretly it should be the rat. Because that would draw anyone searching for them to me, and no-one would think little Peter Pettigrew could do it.' Another tear fell, but Black blew out a choked breath and shook his head. 'He gave away the Secret. That's how You-Know-Who was able to get to them. And I knew- when I heard, I knew- I went after him, I sniffed him out and that smell- that smell, Harry, I can still remember that smell. He stank. It was pouring off him. I could smell what he'd done.'

'And you fought and you killed him and all those Muggles,' Harry said.

'No. No, Harry, I didn't kill them. The rat did.' Black's eyes gleamed in the moonlight, glazed. 'He put on a show, Harry. He knew what he was doing. He knew there would be witnesses, and he was shouting for the rafters to be sure everyone could hear him, and then he cast that Blasting Curse. He attacked those Muggles deliberately, and in the chaos he escaped.'

'The paper says you killed him. That all they found was a finger.'

'He cut it off. I watched him.' Black bared his teeth in a dog's growl. 'And then he escaped. Clever little rat.'

'But someone would have seen,' Harry said gently. 'They'd have seen him run away.'

'No-one was looking for a rat.'

Harry paused on that. 'A rat,' he repeated. 'A rat like... a rat like you're a dog, and Professor McGonagall can be a cat?'

'Yes!' Black clapped his hands over his mouth to hold back a crow of triumph. Harry twisted about, checking automatically, but the night was cool and empty. 'Yes,' Black hissed. 'Exactly. We were all of us animagi. I'm a dog, obviously, your dad was a stag, Peter-' he spat the name even now. 'A rat.'

Harry's mind was reeling. He didn't know what to make of it. His dad had been a stag. 'Was my- no. Okay. Okay, so Peter Pettigrew was a rat. And you didn't kill him?'

'It's my dearest hope I have a chance to make up for that. He's out there, somewhere.' Black's thin chest heaved. 'It kept me alive, you know. Dreaming of the day I'd find him. Shred his skin off his bones with my fingers. Peel him like a potato, slowly.' His eyes fluttered closed, but he calmed himself, this time, and when he spoke again he'd come back from the brink. 'But I'd been there a while- Azkaban- years, maybe, I don't know. And then one day, one day, the new Minister of Magic came touring. They do that, the newly elected Minister. I've been through three. This one, he had a funny name, candy or pudding or something-'

'Fudge,' Harry realised.

'Yeah, that's right. Fudge. And he's carrying the paper, under his arm, when he comes by my cell, and I ask him for it- I used to like the cryptic crosswords in the _Prophet_. Fudge hands it over, and at first it doesn't even occur to me to read it, you know, it's been that long, and I thought I wouldn't know any of the names or the goings-on anyway, after so much time, and I was using the damn thing for shi- uh, personal toiletry. Maybe a week went by? I don't know, there's not much of a way to track the time there. But I'd gone through the entire A section, and I was working through the B when I saw it. An article about you. About how you would surely come out of hiding now, with your eleventh birthday nearing. About how you'd surely be coming to Hogwarts. And I knew I had a second chance to protect the Potters.' Black nodded to himself. 'At least one of you.'

Silence fell between them. Harry worried his lip between his teeth. Thoughts went firing and misfiring in his head, but the one thing he was sure of was this: he didn't know what to do next.

'You're well-protected here, Harry,' Black said at last. 'It's not easy getting in and out of the castle, even as a dog. But you should know. The trolls weren't let in. They were already in Hogwarts.'

'Already in?' Harry repeated blankly. 'Where?'

'They came up from the caverns below the dungeons.'

'There are caverns? How big is-' Harry shook his head. 'Mr Black, I think I know which of the professors did that. I heard two of them talking, and I didn't understand all of it, but Snape definitely said that Quirr-'

'Snape? Severus Snape?' Black had been about to resume his meal, a handful of carrots hovering before his mouth, but now he bared his teeth in a dog's snarl. 'That greasy git still teaches here?'

'Potions,' Harry said. 'Did you know him?'

'Know enough about him to think Dumbledore should've known better.'

'I don't know about that, but I think he's blackmailing Professor Quirrell. He said Quirrell let the trolls in, or out, I guess, and I know he's searching for the Philosopher's Stone.'

'You know about the stone?' Black gazed at him with something less desperate and more like respect. 'I wonder how many others have guessed, after they tried to get it at Gringott's.'

Harry had almost forgot the break-in from his first term, so much had happened. 'I think that's what's behind it all,' Harry told Black eagerly. 'I've had these dreams about a man looking for the stone for his master and I think Quirrell must be him-'

'Which one is Quirrell? I can watch him without his knowing.'

'You would do that?'

'If it protects you.'

Harry bit his lip hard enough to taste copper. Was he being stupid? Was he just hearing what he wanted to hear? But his heart was leaping and his gut twisting and the way Black stared at him, so eager, that couldn't be fake, could it?

'It's not enough to watch him, I think,' Harry said, and Black's gaunt dirty cheeks spread in a wide grin.

'That's my boy,' he said.

* * *

Their Potions assignment that Friday was the Wideye Brew, and Harry knew in considerable detail what it was meant to do because Snape had made everyone do two entire feet of parchment on it. It was an antidote for the Draught of Living Death and it could bring back people who had fainted or hurt their heads and Harry had used up a paragraph explaining what he'd learnt from personal experience, having been administered the potion after his experience in the Forbidden Forest. Snape had marked him up for mentioning the side effect of lowered inhibitions, and marked him down for misspelling both those words.

Hermione was a good study partner, in that she was very good at following instructions precisely, but a bad brewing partner for Harry's way of doing things, which tended towards what she called 'utter and bizarre chaos'. Harry did read the instructions twice, as she did, and he did try to follow them, truly, but it seemed to him that so many of the directions were horribly vague. Sometimes, for instance, the book wanted them to 'crush' their billywig stings, but later in the same receipt it would say 'finely crush'. Sometimes it said to heat their cauldrons over medium flame, then other times it specified 'medium-high' or 'low-medium' and Harry thought grumpily that Muggle gas stoves with their number markers made much more sense. Hermione hectored him whenever he guessed wrong, but that was what he was doing- guessing, really, because none of it was actually written down. When he pointed this out, Hermione said it was there if he would just read the assignments carefully enough.

Harry did not actually believe that. He had read, and carefully, and he'd even checked the index in the back of the book and asked Cedric about controlling the flame and he even watched Draco out of the corner of his eyes, because Draco's potions were always perfect, but at the end of class Harry's cauldron held a gungy sludge the colour and texture of lumpy oats, not at all the creamy tomato bisque-looking glory that was Hermione's effort right next to him. Snape, parading between the desks to examine everyone's progress, vanished Harry's with a flick of his wand and said, 'You aren't even trying, Potter.'

Harry gnashed his teeth. He refused to meet Snape's eyes, though the professor lingered, for a moment, and then did the most astonishing thing.

'Stay after class,' he said. 'You may try again, and if you have greater success I will allow you credit for the second attempt, not the first.'

Ron made a sort of incredulous and jealous noise behind Harry- he'd just got a Troll on his potion, which hadn't even come out as well as Neville's, much less Harry's. Hermione had pinched lips that said she didn't much like this show of favouritism either, since it wasn't fair, exactly, even if it did mean Harry was going to be stuck in Potions for four extra hours on a Friday.

'The rest of you will be responsible for checking the status of your potions at the weekend,' Snape told the class, marching to his desk and seating himself as the bell began to toll. 'Those of you with copper cauldrons will return in eight hours; brass in fourteen; pewter in twenty-three. Perform a statis charm and log your observations to hand in at next class. Mr Filch has instructed me to remind you that the first year curfew remains in effect and you will- Goyle, sit down til I dismiss you. Mr Filch has instructed me to remind you that the first year curfew remains in effect and you will be required to request passes from your Heads of House to be in the halls after eight.' Snape performed an exaggerated sweep of his arm with an elegant sneer at the Slytherins. ' _Now_ you may go, Mr Goyle.'

It took Hermione a long time to pack every class, since everything went into her bag a certain way and she had so many notebooks and all. Harry didn't have any packing to do, as he'd be staying behind, but he needed a fresh cauldron, so he carried his to the sinks in the back and ran the water til it was hot enough. Vanishing spells tended to leave a slime in cauldrons, he'd noticed. He wet a rag and lathered it, squeezing it til it frothed with bubbles, not even noticing that he'd been preoccupied with that so long that his cauldron overflowed in the sink and everyone else had gone and he was alone, now, excepting Snape, who was at his desk making notes, and Tonks, who was watching him but not approaching him- they hadn't talked since she'd tattled on him about the Mirror, and Harry was just fine with that- but Hermione lingered, standing hesitantly just behind him til Harry noticed her there, and turned his head to look at her.

'Do you want me to stay and help?'

'No,' Harry said, and put his eyes back on his cauldron, cutting off the water and sticking both hands into the pot. It was hot enough to burn, and the hurt made his mouth water, but he gritted his jaws and began to scrub. 'It's indepedent assignment.'

'Are you-' Hermione's fingers feathered the pages of her Potions textbook. 'Only if you're distracted by the you-know-what...'

'The what?'

'You know.'

'Don't you start doing that thing too,' Harry snapped, splashing angrily at the suds in the sink. 'I hate how wizards are always doing that. Just say what it is you mean.'

Hermione came close enough that Harry could feel her glaring, though he refused to look at her face and see it. 'If you want the Professor to hear, fine,' she hissed. 'I mean the Stone, Harry.'

Oh. Harry blushed dully. 'Sorry,' he muttered. 'No. I'm not distracted.'

'Did something happen?' Hermione gave him enough time to answer, but Harry didn't, and so she bulldozed onward. 'It was three times anti-clockwise, and then you tap the cauldron with your wand. It said so on the board. Even Ron got that part right.'

'I know what it said, Hermione.'

'Well, then, why didn't you do it?'

'I did!' he flared, and then they were fighting, and he didn't even really know why, except it felt good to holler a bit. 'Why do you think I'm too stupid to follow along? I can read just as well as anyone else, it's just that instructions don't say enough-'

'Obviously you're clever enough, you just don't bother, and-'

'You're not a teacher, don't lecture me like one.'

'I'm not lecturing, I'm trying to help!'

'Well I didn't ask you to,' he said, and turned his back on her. Her face was bright red and her eyes had a sheen like tears and he didn't want to feel badly for putting her in that condition, specially since he knew he looked the same. His head felt horribly hot and his eyes were prickling. 'Just leave me alone,' he said, and plunged his hands back into the hot cauldron, soaking his sleeves and furious enough not to care.

'You did ask,' Hermione told his back. 'You did ask, you know you did, and I thought we were friends.'

'Class is over, Miss Granger,' Snape interrupted suddenly. 'I'm sure you have somewhere else to be. Potter, finish that cauldron and get back to your table, I haven't all evening to watch you.'

Hermione was gone in a flounce, stomping hard enough on the stones for the heels of her Mary Janes to crack like popguns. Tonks wore her eyebrows all the way up her forehead, but Snape included her in his scowl, and with a shrug she rolled up her magazine and took the door after Hermione. It closed behind them. Harry wiped his nose on his sleeve and scrubbed grimly.

Snape was waiting for him when he returned to his table. He stood with his arms folded over his chest, fingers tapping on his left elbow. Harry reset his area, deliberately spreading out into what would have been Hermione's space had she been seated next to him still, and wiped out his mortar and mat to start fresh. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and counted out six of the billywig stings and six of the snake fangs and four scoops from his bag of Standard Ingredient.

Snape said, 'Your remark about the instructions not conveying sufficient information. Explain.'

Harry licked his teeth. 'Everyone else seems to know what they mean. Maybe I am just stupid.'

'If you cannot explain yourself, I suppose that hypothesis will be confirmed.'

Harry needed another breath for that one. 'How do I know where on the cauldron to tap my wand? And where am I supposed to stir?'

Snape blinked once. 'Where?'

'Near the rim? Towards the middle? And why do the instructions say to crush the ingredients but then tell us to use a mortar, which grinds? I asked an older year student.' Harry picked at a bit of dried flake on one of the snake fangs. 'And stuff like this. Does it make a difference?' He held it out on a fingertip, the little bit of skin or whatever it was. Snape touched Harry's fingertip, brushing it into his own palm. His eyes had gone narrow and beady.

'You asked an older student,' he repeated. 'And what did you conclude? About the difference between grinding and crushing.'

'Crushing is what we do with big particulames-'

'Particulate.'

'Yeah, and grinding is after you've crushed the big- things. And mortars are for grinding, not crushing.'

'Mortars can be used to crush, grind, pulverise, and mix,' Snape said, and flipped Harry's book open to the appendices in the back. 'The information is in your book, which you would know if you had read as you claim to have done.'

Harry's head felt hot again, and his throat was tight. He hadn't read the appendices. Maybe Hermione had, because she read everything, but Harry was sure they hadn't been assigned yet. And Cedric had told him about particles but hadn't said anything about the material being in the bloody book.

He rallied enough to say, tightly, 'Well, that's got nothing about where to tap the cauldron or how to stir.'

'The finer nuances of potions brewing are dictated by the ingredients.'

'Well I don't know that, do I?'

'Tone,' Snape chastised him frostily, and Harry shut up. 'That is the point of the essays you are assigned. I assure you, Potter, I do not force myself to pore over your paltry efforts for health and enjoyment.'

'So I am stupid.'

Snape's lips twitched, but he didn't reply right away. When he did, it looked like it cost him. 'Inexperienced,' he said, quite grudgingly. 'In both wizardry and, it would appear, scholarship.'

I'm eleven, Harry almost told him, but evidently eleven was wise enough for some things, and instinct stopped him before he could commit that blunder. He ground his fingernails into his palms.

'A brewer must develop both expertise and intuition,' Snape said. He scooped up Harry's snake fangs and laid them out side by side instead, pointing to the way one was larger than the others. 'Expertise would tell you that your measurements must be precise, that even small particulate can make considerable difference in the efficacy or effect of a potion. Intuition would tell you that, sometimes, you may desire some nuance in efficacy or effect, and you would deliberately brew with that intent.' His lip curled as he looked down at Harry. 'I am frequently regaled with tales of your unparalleled performance in Charms and Defence. You are capable of intuition when it pleases you to be.'

Harry didn't know about half the words Snape had just speechified at him. He did know that expression, though. Adults looked at you that way when they thought you were disobeying on purpose, when you said something rude and acted out and when you weren't acting your age and all manner of things Harry knew he did sometimes, but hadn't been doing just now. So. Snape did think he was stupid, and being stupid on purpose.

'I have little enough time to spare on the students who do want to learn,' Snape said. 'I have none at all for those who belly-ache at the difficulty and blame everything but their own deficiency.' He brushed his hands as if he were wiping Harry off his palms, not a bit of dust. 'Decide which you want to be, Mr Potter. Brew it again.'

It took much longer this time around, since Harry spent many fruitless minutes referencing his text in search of any idea how to chop or stir or mash depending on the ingredient. It was all excessively complicated, and his head felt overfull and swimmy long before he was done. He agonised over the fine sand in his mortar as he mixed the crushed stings and fangs and he read through nearly the entire book looking for a better definition of 'sprig' to decide how much wolfsbane to add, before he recalled that the wolfsbane wasn't going to go in for fourteen more hours- which would make him late, he realised too, for Saturday's Quidditch practise, as he was already late for Friday's. Worst of all, his potion didn't come out any better than his first try. It was distinctly, even violently orange, not the darker red it was supposed to be. Snape spent a long time examining it, and made his first sound in four hours- something like a cross between a sniff and a 'Hm'.

Then he glanced up at Harry, and asked, 'Do the glasses suit?'

Harry touched his specs uneasily. He had written notes thanking everyone for his Christmas presents- Flitwick had given him some fine stationery to use, when he'd asked for paper- but aside from leaving an envelope on the edge of Snape's desk, he hadn't brought it up since school resumed, and he hadn't expected Snape to bring it up.

'Yes,' he said cautiously. 'I- thanks, for. Them. Sir.'

Snape almost said something, then didn't, and then looked away as if he couldn't stand looking at Harry and pressed his palms flat on the table between them. Stiffly he said, 'Good. I am- pleased.'

He sounded like he'd druther eat cactus than be saying anything nice to Harry. Not pleased. Then again, people who plotted in dark corridors didn't generally have lots to be pleased about, Harry would bet.

Harry wiped his scalpel and the pestle with a bit of cloth, thinking a great many things that didn't sum up, and thinking, too, of what Lupin had told him once when he'd complained that maths were too hard and he always got lost in the middle. Then start at the ends, Lupin had said, and solve those first, and you're better off than you started, aren't you? This wasn't maths, but there was a lot about Snape that didn't add up, and Harry thought he'd just stumbled into the answer for a piece of it.

He looked up at his teacher standing there over him making awkward faces, and said, 'I haven't done anything for you, yet, sir.'

Snape's head came up an inch, like he was startled but didn't want to show it. 'Why would you assume you must do something for me? What something?'

'I don't know. What do you want me to do?' Harry picked at a crusty bit of hardened drips that splattered his tabletop. 'Lots of people want things from me. I just wonder when you're going to ask.'

Snape was rigid with fury when Harry peeked. It was a terrifying thing, Snape in a mood like that, almost as angry as he'd been in Harry's first Potions class when he'd tried to take Harry's wand. 'Ungrateful boy,' Snape breathed now. 'You assume-'

'Only Dumbledore did say he thought we would be useful to each other. I haven't been useful to you, yet, and you've made a lot of effort, being nicer and giving me the glasses and extra help in class.' Harry met those fuming black eyes. 'Maybe you'd ask me to help you get the Stone before Quirrell does.'

Snape stared at him so long Harry didn't think he knew what to say to that, but he would never know if Snape did come up with something. Tonks had come back, with a clatter as she tripped over the doorjamb, and she said, 'Oy, Potter, you remember you've got Quidditch, right? I'll walk you out.'

Snape had recovered himself. 'Go,' he told Harry flatly. 'And mind you check on your potion tomorrow. If it has not resolved, be prepared to explain your errors.'

Tonks gave an exaggerated shudder when Harry met her at the door. 'Cold as ice in here,' she whispered, too loudly, and Harry glanced over his shoulder to find Snape's eyes burning a hole in his back.

Oliver Wood was furious with Harry for being late and made Harry stay after practise to work one-on-one on blocks. When Harry tentatively mentioned he'd need to check his potion in the middle of Saturday's practise Oliver put his hand to his forehead, closed his eyes, and visibly counted to ten.

'You need to decide what your priorities are, Potter,' he said. 'When you're on the team you've got to _be_ on the team, you understand?'

'I'm sorry,' Harry said. 'It's not just me, it's everyone in First Year Potions.'

'You can't have one of your friends-'

'The assignment is for us to log it. I'll get marked down.'

'Get Professor McGonagall to write you an excuse.'

'For Snape's class?' Harry said incredulously. 'He'll murder me if I get another professor to let me out of work! And she wouldn't write it anyway.'

'For Quidditch she would. Potter, our Ravenclaw match is only a month away- Potter!'

He shouted this at Harry's back, because Harry had quite suddenly got fed up with being yelled at for the day. He'd sped off on his Nimbus, and Oliver wasn't going to catch him up on a Cleansweep. Tonks met him on the ground at the mouth of the stairs down to the lockerroom, and Harry brushed past her without meeting her eyes. She followed him til he banged through the door to the boy's loo, and though he heard her call his name, too, he didn't respond. He grabbed his clothes and satchell and ran for the back exit. He was halfway uphill to the castle by the time she figured it out, and he was feeling glad and self-righteous and smug right up the moment he jogged past the standing stones and someone grabbed him and pulled him to the dirt.

'Shh,' Draco hissed in his ear, as Harry went stiff and tried to buck him off, and he pushed Harry down by the back of the neck. A moment later, Harry heard it- the shuffling step and constant stream of muttering that inevitably heralded Argus Filch.

Sure enough, there he was, emerging from the castle with a lantern in one hand and his cat Mrs Norris cradled to his chest. 'Anyone about, my pretty?' he was asking his cat, who hung in his grip purring uproariously and contentedly. 'Always someone up to trouble. No? The dungeons, I'd wager. Been a week since those nasty Weasley boys have tried anything... overdue...'

'Mr Filch!' It was Tonks, finally catching up to Harry, though she went right by Draco and Harry crouched behind the standing stones and up to Filch, who grumbled under his breath as she joined him. 'Mr Filch, you seen Harry Potter?'

'Potter?' Filch clutched Mrs Norris close with an awful exaggerated scowl. 'That boy's nowt but trouble. Sneaking about my castle all hours of the night.'

Tonks put her hands on her hips and just Looked at Filch. Harry was silently impressed. If she'd ever Looked at Harry that way, he'd have confessed everything he'd ever so much as thought wrong. She must be the best Auror.

He remembered a moment later he was still upset with her, for making Dumbledore take the Mirror of Erised away. But it didn't make her less impressive, standing up to the caretaker.

Filch lasted approximately three seconds, his neck disappearing into the folds of his yellowed lace cravat as he hunched his shoulders more and more. 'Ain't seen him,' he said, in a much moderated tone. 'Ma'am.'

'He's fast, I'll give him that,' Tonks sighed, and dropped her intimidating pose. 'I'll check Gryffindor Tower, then. Keep a weather eye out, Mr Filch, but it's not the students sneaking that we're worried about, eh?' She tapped the side of her nose as if she'd just shared a secret, and Filch nodded vigorously.

'You can get off me now,' Harry told Draco, when the light of Filch's lantern had faded and they were alone in the dark of the night.

Draco let him roll so he was laying on his back, at least, but for some reason Draco stayed sitting on his legs, well, laying on him, sort of, propped up on his wrists over Harry, looking down at Harry with narrow eyes as if he were the near-sighted one.

'You haven't said a word to me since Christmas,' Draco told him.

Harry let his head fall back to the dirt. 'Sorry.'

'That's not the word I was looking for.'

Harry searched his memory, wondering if he'd promised something and forgot it after. He didn't think so. 'Er... Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?'

Draco looked at him as if he'd just grown another head. 'What in Merlin's name?'

'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Something to say when you have nothing to say. But you'd better use it carefully, or it may change your life.'

Draco's mouth had dropped open a bit at this. He gave a little breath that was almost a laugh, but then his face went solemn. He lifted one hand and carefully took Harry's glasses, lifting them gently from Harry's nose and ears. He put them down a safe ways away, and then he was looking down at Harry, a pale gold smudge with inscrutable grey eyes.

'I like you better without them,' Smudge-Draco said.

The moment stretched out, strange and fragile-feeling. Draco's weight on him wasn't too heavy and Draco smelled nicer than most boys did, including Harry after a sweaty Quidditch practise, so it wasn't unpleasant, but it very much felt like it was supposed to be something important, and there was an uneasy little crawl in his belly straining to make sense of it. Draco was just looking at him, studying him like Harry was a book that could be read and understood.

And then he lifted his hand again, but this time it was to touch Harry's hair, and brush it out of the way. Very, very lightly, so lightly Harry almost couldn't feel it, Draco traced his lightning bolt scar.

'Millicent's going to ask you on a date,' Draco whispered.

'Oh,' Harry said.

Draco's finger on Harry's forehead followed the line of his eyebrow. 'Are you going to say yes?'

'I don't know. I don't know what a date means.'

'She might want to hold your hand. She might want to kiss you.'

The uneasy feeling in Harry's stomach became a flip-flop.

'Will you say yes?' Draco asked again.

'I dunno,' Harry said. 'I reckon it depends on whether she's asking because she really wants to, or because someone told her it's the best way to be near to Harry Potter.'

'You're hateful sometimes,' Draco accused him, but he didn't move, and his finger came to rest alongside Harry's cheek.

'I'm not trying to be. I'm trying not to be.'

Abruptly Draco climbed off him. Harry felt about in the grass for his glasses, and crammed them on to see Draco with a hand impatiently extended. He pulled Harry to his feet and helped him pick up everything he'd dropped, his broom and his trainers. Harry bundled his clothes under his arm and stuffed the tie Draco located in his pocket.

'Were you looking for me?' Harry asked, wondering at Draco, who seemed even less like himself now, a little ruffled by the wind, shivering with the cold, bright spots in his cheeks that looked dark in the moonlight. 'Or just for some mystery word from me.'

Draco said, 'My father found out about your relatives.'

Harry froze.

Draco made a move toward him, then stopped himself and wrapped his arms about his chest. He swallowed, and didn't say anything.

Harry couldn't look at him. He couldn't- he couldn't think, and he had to think. He flipped about to lean on the nearest stone, flattening his palms to its scarred gritty surface. It dug into his cheek when he pressed against it. His heart was pounding hard enough against his ribs to come bursting out.

'Harry...'

'Why was he looking,' Harry burst out, or thought he did, but it only emerged in a weak hiss, barely carrying. 'Who is he going to tell? What did he- what did he find out, why- why was he-'

'Everyone wants to know about you.' Draco came a step toward him, then two more and put his hand on Harry's arm, gripping him tight enough to hurt. 'Everyone wants to figure it out, you know that, and being the first would matter, it would make my father important to know. That's all. Everyone already knows they're Muggles, no-one holds it against you, well, not people who are powerful enough to do anything more than grumble.'

Draco said more, but the thunder in Harry's head was beginning to cool, and he began to realise something. Draco hadn't said that Mr Malfoy knew Harry didn't live with his relatives, and that was a crucial piece of information. How could he ask it, how could he ask it to be sure what they did and didn't know about him?

'Harry!'

Draco's voice had risen to a frightened shout. It was the emotion in it that recalled Harry, more than the volume, and he whirled about, just in time to see the big black dog that was Sirius Black spring from behind Harry's stone at Draco.

'No!' Harry was running before thought caught up. He flung his arms about Black's furry shoulders and threw himself to the side. Draco staggered and scrambled away as Harry hit the dirt under ten stone of enraged dog, crying out when something cracked hitting the dirt. Black shifted into his man-form immediately, bending over him in concern and trying to keep between him and Draco at once. Draco had fetched up against the stone and had his wand drawn, trembling, and red light spat from its tip and stung Black's outstretched arm. Black growled, low and dangerous, and swayed to his feet to lurch at Draco. 'No!' Harry cried, grabbing for his leg. Black stopped at his touch, but he bared his teeth at Draco. 'No, Sirius!'

'You heard what he said, Harry. His father knows about you.'

'And he warned me. I can do something about it. It, not him,' he hastily added, because Black was one big seized-up muscle, ready to attack. 'Don't. Please.'

Something he'd said made Black sag, suddenly. 'All right,' Black said softly, and then gazed down at him with drawn brows. 'Are you hurt, Harry?'

With the fright of everything fading, Harry nodded shakily. 'My wrist.' It was throbbing.

'I'll take you to the hospital wing.' Draco sidled towards him, and Black let him come, showing his teeth in something very much not a grin. 'Don't sick up,' Draco warned him, moving his shoes out of the way, but Harry gulped it back and managed to keep to his feet. 'And you! I thought you were trying to prove you're not out to get Harry!'

Black darted at Draco, who dumped Harry and went skittering back with a fearful gasp. 'I don't have to prove anything to a Malfoy,' Black snarled.

'There are Aurors everywhere,' Harry intervened. 'You shouldn't be this close to the castle. Please, Sirius, please go, I'll handle the-' He closed his eyes against a lurch of nausea. His wrist was really hurting now. 'I'll tell Professor Lupin.'

'Professor who?' asked Draco.

'You won't... you won't tell him about me?' Black whispered.

'No.' Not yet, if only because it would be far too much to explain. 'Just wait long enough for me to ask him what to do, please. He'll know what to do.'

'Which professor?' Draco persisted.

'You don't get to ask me that after telling me your dad's going to sell information about me!'

Draco looked stricken. 'It's not like that.'

'That's exactly what it's like.'

'Harry?'

It was Tonks. 'Go,' Harry hissed at Black, but it was an unnecessary warning. Black had slipped back to his dog form and was disappearing beyond the stones into the night. Draco huddled to Harry's side, jostling him, and Harry ground his jaws together at the jagged rasp of pain in his wrist. 'Don't touch,' he gasped, and Draco jerked back miserably.

'Harry!' Tonks had found them with the light of her wand. She came tripping down the steps. 'Harry? Draco, that you too? Where've you been, I've been looking-' She made it to the bottom with just a little loss of balance and went right into fussing over him. 'What's wrong, why you holding your arm like that? What happened?'

Harry yelped as she took his arm. Draco shoved her away, and hugged him close protectively. 'He fell,' Draco said. 'I found him and I was taking him to hospital.'

'You fell? Bloody hell, I'd say so, that's swelling up proper.' Tonks stopped Draco trying to drag Harry around her with a hand to Harry's shoulder. 'We'll go right away, but I need you to tell me you understand why you can't go about alone in the dark, right? It's important, Harry. You could be hurt alone out here and your friends not around to help, or any of the teachers.'

'I understand.'

'Then don't run away from me again, hear?'

'I'm not a little kid, I can be alone sometimes.' Harry forced himself to take a deep breath. 'But... I'll tell you when I want to be, and I'll do it indoors.'

Tonks relaxed. 'Thank you, Harry. I know it's not pleasant- I really am sorry.' She ruffled his hair, and Harry let her do it for a moment before ducking his head away. 'Right. Come on. You have a good grip on him, Draco?'

'Yes, Miss- Cousin Tonks,' Draco said.

It was a blatant ploy to win points on Harry's temper, but he was tired and just grateful their lie wasn't being challenged, and in that moment all he wanted was to lie down for a year. Tonks wore a tentative smile as she collected Harry's broom and kit. They stood each to one side of Harry as he walked in, both of them touching him as he climbed the stairs to the great doors. Harry couldn't help a glance back, wondering if Sirius Black was out there watching them, but he couldn't see that far even with the new lenses.


	14. Man Is Not What He Thinks

_In Which Certain Truths Come To Light._

Madam Pomfrey clucked over his wrist as she turned it first to the left and then to the right. 'Any pain, Mr Potter?' she asked him.

'No, Miss.'

'Stiffness? Do me a full rotation.' They both listened for the click, but it had gone finally, and Harry sighed in relief. 'Excellent,' Pomfrey said, and released him with a little pat to his palm. 'I was a bit worried by the amount of Skelegrow we had to do you. Your tolerance to magical potions abhors predictibility.'

'Madam?'

'I mean I'm never quite sure how you'll react, physically.' She tapped the bone-topped bottle of Skelegrow Potion that sat on the tray beside his bed. 'I suspect you may have a magical allergy, but deducing the wherefore of it would involve a fair amount of unpleasant experimentation, and I fear I'd never tempt you to drink another potion again if I put you through that.'

Harry was already shuddering. 'Please no.'

Pomfrey smiled tolerantly, but went on tapping the bottle thoughtfully. 'It could be important, one day. Inevitably these sorts of things pop up when least expected- and least helpful.' She eyed Harry. 'I might bring it up with Professor Snape, if you'd allow me to discuss your medical history with him. Magical allergies can be deadly, Mr Potter. It would distress me to unwittingly expose you to danger, especially as it seems you'll be a frequent guest here.'

'No,' Harry said, and couldn't face the little frown that appeared on Madam Pomfrey's face at his flat tone. He picked at his quilt. 'It's only... I, I don't want him to... please, don't.'

'I know Professor Snape can be a bit intimidating,' she said delicately, 'but he is an excellent Potions Master. For all his youth he's made quite the name for himself.'

It was weird to think of any of the professors as young, exactly. And anyway Harry couldn't exactly explain why he didn't want Snape to have the opportunity to dose him with things- and, anyway, as soon as he'd said it he'd thought back on it, and wondered if maybe it wasn't the perfect opportunity after all. Snape couldn't dose him with anything too bad with Madam Pomfrey watching to see how it affected him, and that would be more time for Harry to watch Snape and try to figure out what he knew about Quirrell.

Harry chewed his lip, and said, 'I wonder if that's why the headaches never really go away?'

Pomfrey nodded immediately. 'Healing is art as much as science, in some ways, and there are chronic conditions it cannot alleviate, but I admit it disturbs me that I can't put these headaches of yours to rest, Harry. There's a double handful of possible reasons and we simply don't have enough clues to eliminate anything. An allergy to some specific ingredient in potions is possible, as I said, but there are other kinds of reactions. It may be that the build-up of magical energy in Hogwarts is overwhelming to you after years of being raised in a magic-less environment.'

'But then wouldn't other Muggleborns have the same problem? Hermione never has headaches and her parents are dentists.'

'It's also possible that it wouldn't be the same for every child. It's also possible...' Pomfrey hesitated, but right when Harry was going to demand she just tell him anyway- because he wasn't a child, or at least not as much of a child as everyone was always pretending he was- she did just tell him outright. 'The curse that was performed on you when you were an infant may have long-lasting consequences. You are the only known survivor.'

That brought Harry up short. 'You mean the killing curse?'

'I do, Mr Potter.'

Harry chewed at his lip til Madam Pomfrey gently tapped it. 'You can talk to Professor Snape, I guess.'

'Thank you,' she said solemnly. 'I wish I could promise we will quickly find an answer, but I have to warn you it may come to nothing. But I do believe it's important that we try.' She checked the little fob watch that hung on her apron and rose from her seat at his bed. 'It's past bedtime, young man. You'd be fine to go back to your own bed, but not so late. You'll sleep here and I'll have one of the elves fetch you a change of clothes for the morning.'

'There's wards on my trunk now,' Harry reminded her, but his eyes felt heavy and he slid under the quilt without protest. 'I can go before breakfast.'

She dimmed the lamps with her wand and left one burning bright inside the loo, angling the door almost shut so that he could see it even after he removed his glasses. He slid his wand under his pillow, wrapping his fingers around it. They tingled just slightly against the smooth wood, but it wasn't a pinched nerve or even the aftereffects of Skelegrow. It had been happening since he'd slipped that hand in spilled unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, and he wondered anew at it, and wondered, too, if he ought to tell, with all this talk of magical allergies. Well. He'd bring it up if and when they started examining him. There was no saying Snape would agree to help him, even if he was making a show of being nice to Harry.

He fell asleep thinking about trolls in the dungeons, and wondering about caverns.

Dreaming about caverns. Deep caverns, some carved by magic, some by ancient forces that were a kind of magic unto themselves. Stalacites and stalagmites sheened with dripping water a thousand years removed from the flood that had hollowed out the stone; crystal embedded in the high arched walls would have gleamed, had there been any light to catch on it. Bat colonies had made their homes in depths no other creature could reach, and there was life of other kinds, too, blind fish, crabs, even amphibians with pale bodies that had never and would never see the sun, and insects that lived their short frantic lives untouched by anything on the earth's surface far away. Formations of exotic bacteriae and poisonous acids made some of the caves impassable, and in others spiders and scorpion-like creatures crawled over each other in a pulsating carpet of venom-filled claws. There was an alien, austere beauty in it, both dangerous and self-contained, uninterested in the world above. And viciously, violently repulsed when the world above intruded its quietude.

He walked along paths that few humans had ever known existed, the dim glow of his wand blinding in a world utterly without light. Seeking. Seeking. These depths were unplumbed, these magicks undisturbed, and he would be the first, the only, to touch these wonders. To use them. Weaponise them.

There. Gleaming like a star in the reflected light of his wand. He drew closer, boots splashing in a river that flowed from who knew where, a soft hissing accompaniment to the singing triumph in his breast. He touched a gloved finger to the cave wall and spoke a single word, and magic carved into the rock, sundering it with a resounding crack. The small oblong stone he held in his hand pulsed with power. It was perfect.

'My dear Poppy, I cannot fathom what you mean.'

Harry woke abruptly. Time had passed, he sensed that much, but other than an awareness of the late hour he felt only confusion. Hadn't he been somewhere else? Somewhere very far down. He rubbed his cheek along the pillow but it wasn't his pillow, in his dorm- this one smelled a bit like antiseptic. He blinked his eyes reluctantly open, and saw not his room with the other boys' beds, but Dumbledore, standing in the centre of the infirmary speaking softly with Madam Pomfrey. Harry let his heavy lids fall closed, but some still part of himself knew to keep breathing as if he slept, to lay limp as if he still slept, to listen only with the tiniest awakened part of his mind.

'Cannot fathom?' Pomfrey repeated, in a small tense voice. 'Shall I show you the records again? He's far and away the most frequently logged. The headaches, the small injuries-'

'He cannot be blamed for accidents.'

'I'm not blaming him, Albus, as you very well know. What I am trying to do is point out the pattern. You have been at this long enough to recognise the signs, Albus, and I beg you not to turn away because of a well-known family name.'

'You think very little of me, Madam,' Dumbledore replied heavily.

'I think I have some understanding of the difficulty of making an accusation against a Pureblood family of unquestionable Light allegiance.'

'Allegations that will be difficult to prove, and intent that may be genuinely well-meant.'

'This nonsense about him being practically a Squib?' Pomfrey tsked. 'More like forcing him to use a wand that ought better to still be in his father's hand.'

The knot of growing anxiety in Harry's belly abruptly released; then in worsened. They weren't talking about Harry after all. In fact, he thought he knew who they did mean.

'I cannot intervene in the matter of the wand.'

'You can write yourself asking them to accede to reality. You think Augusta Longbottom would deny you without a second thought?'

'Even with a third or fourth thought, Poppy, she may yet deny me. You know she believes her grandson should, must, follow his father's footsteps.'

'I know she believes Neville is Frank's second coming, oh, yes. I'm surprised she hasn't changed his name yet. The labels inside his shirts all read Frank's name, you know.' Pomfrey's voice took on a bitter tinge. 'And I know she refused him treatment for that failed Oblivation he endured as an infant. Damn those Aurors again for even attempting it, I don't know what they were thinking.'

'They were thinking that a child who'd watched his parents tortured to madness should not bear the burden of remembering it.'

Harry clenched his hand on his mother's wand. He thought unwillingly of the green light, her scream. He hated that nightmare- memory- but he thought, too, he would have hated anyone who took it away from him. It was all he really had of her.

A brittle silence took hold of the infirmary. Then Pomfrey shifted, and a rustle of paper accompanied the click of her heel on the clean marble tile. 'The files. Read them, Albus, swear to me that much. If you can still tell me then you believe you should do nothing, then I suppose I am defeated.'

'Poppy.'

'Anxiety. Self-injury. Scratching and biting themselves. Impulse and risk-seeking behaviours. Albus. This is not a situation which can rest for years waiting for something big to happen. Something big will happen, and by then it will be too late.'

'I am properly chastened, Madam.'

'Properly warned, Albus.' Footsteps came toward Harry's bed, then, and he felt a cool hand touching his forehead, checking his temperature. 'There's too much at stake.'

They were gone not much long after, and Harry burrowed his nose into the pillow and let sleep take him again. He would think about everything he'd heard in the morning.

* * *

Bill Weasley was waiting for him in the Gryffindor common room when Harry, running rather late, emerged from a rapid shower and a hasty dress. He stood chatting with his brother Percy, one arm propped on the mantel over the large fireplace. He smiled at Harry as Harry came clattering down the stairs, and Percy hefted his Hermione-sized load of books and pushed his glasses up on his nose, which made Harry check his own specs. Bill's smile widened at that.

'Morning, Harry,' Bill said.

'Yes, good morning, Harry,' repeated Percy. 'You haven't eaten yet?'

'I'm just off to do,' Harry replied. 'Something wrong?'

The brothers exchanged a glance. Bill kept smiling; Percy did not. Percy generally didn't. 'You're for the Headmaster,' Percy said. 'He specifically said you're not in trouble.'

Harry had alread tensed up. 'Oh,' he said uncertainly. 'Then, why...'

'That a letter?' Bill interrupted brightly. 'I can post that for you.'

Harry shoved the letter he'd just scribbled out for Lupin into his robe's pocket. 'No, it's all right. No- er, no rush.'

He gained himself a bright-eyed look of curiosity for that. 'Normally it's you who'd have the secret admirer,' Bill said slyly. 'Who're you sending love letters to, eh?'

Harry flushed. 'No-one!'

'Not even Tonks?'

Harry's face was flaming so hotly he had to press his hands to his cheeks. 'No!'

Percy nudged Bill. 'Have mercy,' he said, and Bill chuckled. 'I just wanted to be sure you were all right, Harry? I heard you were in hospital last night?'

Harry showed his wrist, rotating it obediently. 'Just had a fall. Draco and Tonks helped. I'm all right.'

'Glad to hear it.' Bill clapped him on the shoulder. 'Come on, then, I'm to take you up. You can post your love letter after.'

Harry had his suspicions about what he was being called in to discuss. Being out alone last night, he was pretty sure Tonks would have tattled on him for that, or Madam Pomfrey since he'd had a broken bone from it. Or maybe they'd want to talk to him about Neville, if they suspected he'd heard anything last night- Harry hadn't even seen Neville yet this morning, but he knew he couldn't hear what he'd heard and do nothing for Neville. Maybe it was something as simple as Dumbledore keeping his promise that he would teach Harry how to talk with Fawkes, but Harry didn't really expect the Headmaster to keep his word on that. Adults said a lot of things in the moment and forgot about them after.

But Harry hadn't expected what awaited him as they climbed the spiral stairs and emerged into Dumbledore's office. There were people all sitting before Dumbledore's desk, and one of them was Professor McGonagall, looking both anxious and as if she were trying not to be anxious, and there was a boy he'd never met before, a big whale of a boy spilling over the arms of his chair and staring about him in fascination, and there was a tall woman with a thin pinched face who wore a pink overcoat tied very tightly about her waist and who kept touching the scarf at her throat as if she wanted to wrap her entire head in it and disappear.

But she was the first one to greet him, shooting up out of her chair and coming straight for him. Harry found himself ripped out of Bill's grip and yanked into an embrace, smooshed to the woman's bosom and smothered against the folds of her coat. 'Harry, darling,' she cried.

Oh, God. Harry knew who she was, after all. She was his Aunt.

* * *

Harry had thought many times over the years what his relatives might be like. What little he remembered of them wasn't good, and he'd known of course how they'd abandoned him. Other children, he'd learnt, had been taught from an early age to know things like their name, and their parents' names, and to memorise their address and telephone number and secret passwords that only family would know in case a stranger tried to trick you and kidnap you from the store or something. Harry had known none of those things, not even his own surname. He hadn't been able to read, he hadn't been able to say where he lived, he hadn't known if it were a house or a flat or a town or the country or any of those things; when the police had asked him, all Harry had known about himself had fit on the small card pinned to his shirt.

He understood now, of course, why the police had never been able to find the Dursleys. There had been no legal adoption, not in the Muggle way of things. Dumbledore had left him wrapped in a blanket on the Dursley's front step in the middle of the night- his Aunt was telling that story even now, in sugared tones, as Dumbledore smiled at her. But Harry's mind went tripping on through the rest of it. His parents had been a witch and a wizard and when they'd died the Muggles wouldn't know about it, of course, so no-one knew there was a baby to be taken care of. The Dursleys had the money for Harry's upkeep, but the money didn't come from a real bank, so far as they were concerned- it didn't advertise in bus shelters, it didn't have locations in participating regions, it didn't publish flyers or send statements. And they'd had Harry for three years without a single magical person coming to check on him, because only Dumbledore had known where Harry was. So the police had gone through birth records and the national registry and the phone book and all manner of things and there had been no Potters to find. It was as if Harry had come from nowhere, and so there was nowhere to send him back to.

But the strangest thing was that his Aunt didn't seem to remember it the way Harry did. She was a very accomplished liar. Her whole face lit up when she told a story about Harry vanishing one day from school and re-appearing on the roof- and that had really happened, but the school had been Crowhill and Harry had been thrashed so hard he couldn't sit for a day, not treated to ice cream the way his Aunt Petunia was saying now. How did she know the story? And she talked about how interesting it was in Diagon Alley, but she hadn't ever been there, because Lupin had gone with Harry, and it had been Lupin who'd taken him to King's Cross Station, not his uncle Vernon. She chattered on, and she kept one hand latched on Harry's wrist, her thin fingers overlaying the healed break from Sirius Black and grinding down on him nearly as hard as Black had, so tight her knuckles were white and Harry was losing feeling in his hand, but that only matched the strange feeling inside his head. Harry stared at his lap, unable to look up.

Dumbledore chuckled at Petunia describing the funny little goblin who had taken them to Harry's vault, as if she'd actually met Griphook in Gringott's. 'Charming,' the Headmaster said indulgently. 'Mrs Dursley, I am very glad you have grown to enjoy some aspects of our world. I see my worry about any lingering animosity was misplaced.'

'Animosity?' Aunt Petunia gave a sparkling little laugh with edges so sharp it could have cut. Harry flinched from her, and she redoubled her hold on his wrist. 'How could I hold this sweet child accountable for anything?' she said. 'After the suffering my sister endured in your world, I admit, I had doubts. But for dear Harry's sake I knew I must be absolutely supportive.'

'And I do assure you that Harry's safety is my primary concern. Harry must thrive in the Wizarding World.' Harry could feel the weight of every gaze on him, and it made him feel faint and unwell. He squeezed his eyes shut. 'You may not be aware, Mrs Dursley, but Harry has made quite a splash in our society. He has acquitted himself very well in a short time. You have every reason to be proud of your nephew.'

Aunt Petunia simpered at this. 'I am proud of both my boys, Headmaster, both my boys.'

'Yes, Mr Dursley. How do you like our school? And where do you attend?'

'Smeltings,' said the whale of a boy. Harry sneaked a look at his cousin. Dudley, that was his name, and he had the same glazed incurious contentment that Crabbe and Goyle did, unconcerned with what went on around them so long as they had chocolate frogs and the teachers didn't pay them too much attention. Dudley had even been given a plate of sweets, just like them, specially prepared by the house elves, who had been rudely poked when they arrived to deliver it. Harry had whispered an agonised apology to Teensy and Wheedle when Dudley pulled their long ears, and was too ashamed to eat his pumpkin scone. Dudley had made short work of it for him, and there were crumbs in the corners of his mouth still, as if it were too much effort to wipe them away. 'We don't got none of this, though,' Dudley said with appreciation, gazing about Dumbledore's office acquisitively. 'What do all those toys do?'

'Many are for measuring the movement of the stars,' Dumbledore answered. 'Our ancestors called the heavens "the planes of mystery". Rather poetic, isn't it. I have a great fascination with mysteries.'

Harry hadn't known that. It burned that Dumbledore would tell that to Dudley, not Harry, who had been here several times now and never heard that about Dumbledore before.

'Mum, can I play?' Dudley demanded immediately.

Only the sharp pain in his wrist told Harry how much the idea disgusted his Aunt. She ground his bones together. 'Oh, darling,' she said, 'don't touch, dearest. We wouldn't want to... disturb... any of these... things.'

'Speaking of disturbances,' said Professor McGonagall, and Dumbledore picked up on her lead and sobered greatly.

'Speaking of disturbances,' repeated the Headmaster. 'I believe by now you must be aware, Mrs Dursley, that a petition of adoption has been filed with the Ministry of Magic.'

Harry's head shot up so quickly his neck cracked. 'Adoption?'

It must be Lupin, he was thinking. Lupin had sworn to him he wouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys. And hadn't he said something about paperwork?

'Unfortunately,' said Dumbledore, 'this petition falls into an obscure and little-used loophole of Wizarding law. The Potters, as many ancient Wizarding families do, had a long-standing relationship with the goblin tribe which controls Gringotts, and one of the services that may be performed for families of good standing is the sealing of a testament of entail.'

Petunia's frown drew attention to the powder caked into the lines on either side of her mouth. 'Entail,' she faltered. 'Goblins seal... seal testaments of-'

'Entail,' McGonagall supplied, mostly to Harry, who stared desperately at her. 'Much of Wizarding law was laid down in the mediaeval era, Mr Potter, Mrs Dursley, and entail is one such concept. Entail restricts the sale of inheritance except to an heir pre-determined by deed or statement.'

'But I don't understand what this has to do with adoption.'

'It was more common in past times for Wizarding families to have many branches, enabled by many offspring per generation,' Dumbledore replied, folding his hands before him on his desk. His eyes flicked to Harry, who dropped his back to his lap. 'In recent centuries our families have grown smaller. The Potters are not the only ancient family now represented by a single heir. In the event that an heir is underage, entail may require an intermediary who is of maturity, which is why many Wizarding families also adopted the tradition of binding a godparent to distinct legal responsibilities on behalf of the child. Mr Potter's godfather was denied the execution of these responsibilities by virtue, or by lack of virtue, more accurately, of his life imprisonment in Azkaban. Wizarding prison,' he added, for Aunt Petunia, whose face gave a spasm of contempt before she smoothed it self-consciously. 'However, goblin law is adjudicated without consideration for the fitness of the individual, only the exact terms of the contract. Because the Potters did not live to remove Sirius Black from his legal rights as Harry's godfather, he has standing in goblin law to fulfil the rule of entail. The Potter estates, including real property as well as their Gringotts vault and various magical possessions, fall to Mr Black's administration. And now a claim has been filed, under goblin law. Who, I have not been able to discover. The claimant has filed under the strictest secrecy allowed, so that even the existence of the claim has gone some months unnoticed. If successful, it would allow the claimant to adopt the Potter name.'

'Adopt- adopt my name?' Harry asked, as Aunt Petunia yanked at his hand and said, jarringly loud, 'But not adopt the boy?'

'As of this time,' said Dumbledore. 'It is entirely possible this is only the first gambit in a longer-reaching strategy. If successful, a Potter, even by name, would have a stronger claim on Harry himself.'

Something fell into place for Harry. 'You think it's Sirius Black,' he said, inadvertantly meeting Dumbledore's eyes, and then something very strange happened.

He felt as if he were tumbling. Falling. Falling into a deep well, and at the bottom of the well there was a terrible eddy of thoughts and feelings and memories, a maelstrom of chatter and hurts and excitement and Harry thought of the car-crash-that-wasn't-really-a-car-crash and his mother's scream and his mother's wand in the box in Gringott's and Hagrid's flying motorbike and then into a small dark space that smellt of chemicals and dust and a small line of broken toy soldiers lined the little shelf, beside a bottle that had once held milk and was now very dry, and there sat Harry, small and hungry and too tired even to cry, pressing his hand hopelessly against the door and already knowing it was latched tightly shut.

Harry was trembling when Dumbledore looked away at last. Dumbledore's hands clasped tightly about themselves, his knuckles standing out white in his soft wrinkled skin. He smiled at Aunt Petunia.

'Yes, I think it is likely Sirius Black,' he replied, as if Harry's vision had never happened. 'He has the most motive.'

Harry wiped at sweat dripping down his forehead. His head was beginning to throb. McGonagall looked at him sharply, and poured him a glass of water. Harry tried to reach for it, and without looking at him Aunt Petunia yanked his hand back to his lap and held it there.

'So what do we do to stop this?' Aunt Petunia demanded.

'At the moment, there is very little that can be done,' the Headmaster said. 'At least in terms of disputing the claim. However, I think it would be wise to begin protecting Harry's assets by removing them beyond attack.'

Harry rubbed at his aching eye beneath the lense of his glasses with his free hand. 'But you already have my vault key,' he said.

Dumbledore paused ever so minutely. Harry mightn't even have noticed it, but for the way Bill Weasley shifted on his feet and McGonagall's head came up with keen attention.

'Black would be granted a copy if he were successful in his petition for entail,' Dumbledore said, but then Dudley Dursley gave off a yelp and Aunt Petunia screamed, a shrill little yell like a teapot whistling on the boil, and Harry leant forward in his chair to see what the fuss was about.

The fuss was about Fawkes the Phoenix bursting into flame.

'Ah,' Dumbledore said brightly. 'And about time. He was in quite a state this week, very grudging.'

Harry joined his relatives in gaping. 'Will he be all right?' he asked distressedly.

'Oh, yes. This is a necessary process for him. If you would like to check on him, Harry, you will find him reborn amongst the ashes.'

Aunt Petunia didn't want to let him go. Harry pulled, and clenched his jaws as she grated his bones together. Then suddenly he was free- McGonagall was watching them like a hawk. Harry was out of his seat and across the room as soon as he could be, to discover himself sweating in more than just his headache. He was wet beneath the arms and under his shirt and his heart was pounding. He hurried up the steps to the raised area where Fawkes's perch stood beneath the window, gripping the edge of the podium to steady his shaking legs. There was a thick layer of ash coating the bowl, and Harry extended clammy fingers to rake through it. He feared he might turn up bones or charred feathers, but it crumbled in furrows at his touch, soft and cooling already. He jumped when he found something warm in it, and dug both hands into the ash to dig up a tiny fragile body- a chick's body, ugly and naked of the glorious scarlet feathers Fawkes was meant to have, his tiny beak poking black and weak against Harry's palm. Harry cradled Fawkes to his shirt, and Fawkes buried his small head against Harry's chest, croaking a sad imitation of his usual beautiful song.

Harry turned, to find Aunt Petunia staring at him with undisguised loathing. And Dumbledore was watching her watch him. Dumbledore swallowed as if he'd tasted something very unpleasant, and took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

'He'll like to be warm for a few days as he recovers,' McGonagall told Harry gently. She joined him by the perch, resting her hands on his shoulders, which put her body between him and his relatives. She didn't quite hold him, but for a moment, just a moment, Harry was close enough to lean on her, and it was a mighty temptation. McGonagall gazed down at him gravely. 'It is the weekend,' McGonagall said softly. 'Perhaps you'd like to stay and observe his progress? I'd be willing to put up a few points of extra credit if you'd write a short essay for your Muggle Integration group.'

Hermione would be desperately jealous. Harry nodded, and McGonagall smiled her stern little smile.

'Well, since you're here,' Bill Weasley said, and Harry peered past McGonagall's tartan robe to see him facing off Petunia and Dudley Dursley with determined courtesy. 'I'd be pleased to give you a tour of the school. No classes to disturb, on a Saturday, but you'd get a sense of the place.'

'No, no, we wouldn't want to put you out.' Aunt Petunia shot to her feet. 'Dudders, lovey, stay with Mummy. Just- stay very close to Mummy.' As if steeling herself to thrust her arms into fire, she put out her hands toward Harry. 'Give us a hug, Harry dear.'

He didn't want to. He didn't want to, he didn't want to touch her ever. He cast a look of acute misery at his Head of House, and knew without being told she wouldn't make him. But her hold on his shoulder reminded him of something important: he was a Gryffindor, and he had chosen this lie for a purpose. It was only a small thing, and then it would be over and he would go on living the life he wanted, his life at Hogwarts where he had magic to replace the family they would have been.

He shuffled uneasily into Aunt Petunia's arms, shielding Fawkes against his chest as she embraced him gingerly. She let him go quickly enough, and raked his fringe down over his scar. She simpered at him without meeting his eyes.

'We'll be getting on,' she said, letting him go and catching herself before she wiped her hands on her coat. 'Don't want Daddy getting lonely at home waiting for us.'

Somehow Harry found himself alone, then. Bill was escorting the Dursleys to the gate, and McGonagall had seized Dumbledore with an imperiously furious gaze, and the last strength in Harry's legs vanished. He sank onto the floor right where he stood and bent over his lap, light-headed. 'Fawkes,' he whispered.

Fawkes crooned at him- or tried to, maybe. It came out a sort of squeak and squawk. Harry smiled tremulously. 'Yeah,' he murmured. 'I know what you mean.'

He wiped his face. His headache had eased a little, and the queasy bad feeling, too, though he wanted nothing so much as another shower. He lurched to his feet, and opened his robes to tuck Fawkes into his front shirt pocket. From the pocket at his hip he removed his letter to Lupin, now somewhat crumpled, and unsealed the wax stamp. He hunted across Dumbledore's desk for a quill, and found a long gold-edged eagle feather poking out of a little inkpot. Harry dipped it and added a few scribbled lines at the bottom of his letter.

 _The Dursleys came to Hogwarts. I don't know why but Aunt Pentunia pretended to have always had me, maybe it was about keeping the money? I don't know why and she also brought my cousin Dudley, he's a horrid lump I think. And there's something about entale, I don't know what that is but Dumbledore says he thinks Sirius Black is asking the goblins to give him entale on my_ _prope_ _propperty_ _propertie(?) and my vault but I wonder why would Sirius do that if he already owns my vault, isn't that what Griphook said the day we were at Gringotts? And also I think he would have to_

Harry stopped writing with a scratch. He thought Sirius would have told him if he'd done something that important, yes, but he couldn't very well tell Lupin that without explaining that he'd been talking to Sirius, and begun believing what he had to say.

Harry set the nib of the quill back to the parchment, and wrote, _Please I need to see you I think we must talk, there is a lot to talk about now._

He signed it, _Yours, Harry,_ and used the red wax sealer on Dumbledore's desk to stamp a Hogwarts seal on it. Well, that couldn't be helped, even if it would make Lupin wonder if Harry had really written it or if it had been tampered with by someone else. He added a foolish ' _From me, really_ ' beneath the stamp, and rubbed his temples. It was all enough to make his head swirl.

'Mr Weasley mentioned you had a letter you would like to mail,' Dumbledore said softly behind him, and Harry whirled about to see the Headmaster standing by the door, hands folded before him. He didn't look angry, but Harry tensed all the same.

'It's private,' Harry said.

'So I assumed,' Dumbledore assured him. He walked slowly to the desk, but didn't take his usual seat behind it. Instead he sat in the chair that had most recently held Aunt Petunia, propping one leg over the other knee and stroking his beard. 'You don't have an owl, Harry?'

'No, sir.'

'You don't find it inconvenient, to await your turn with the school owls?'

'Sometimes I have to wait, but it's not bad.'

'And your aunt and uncle, they don't mind receiving owl post? It is a rather arcane mode of communication, compared to Muggle advances.' Dumbledore stroked his beard, waiting out Harry's nonresponse. 'I have considered installing a telephone, you know. I think it might be a great convenience to our Muggleborn students. And, indeed, to our staff, who must communicate with Muggle parents.'

'I reckon getting rung up to be told your kid's a witch would be a little off,' Harry said. 'Like a prank call or something. And I liked getting my letter. It was... real.'

'Very wise, Harry.' After a moment, Dumbledore extended a hand. 'Fawkes?'

'Oh.' Harry fetched him out of his pocket. Fawkes grumbled a bit at being disturbed and tried to burrow his puny beak between Harry's fingers. He tried to give Fawkes to Dumbledore, but the Headmaster only checked on him, stroked him once down the spindly black stumps of feathers riding his spine, and sat back again.

'Have you by any chance read anything on phoenices?' Dumbledore asked.

'Phoenes-sees?'

'The plural form,' Dumbledore said, his lips twitching up.

'Oh. I thought I was- pronouncing it wrong, maybe. I'm not great with English.'

'You express yourself very clearly, Mr Potter.'

Harry couldn't reply to that. His throat had gone tight. Maybe he was great at English after all, because he knew that had two meanings at least, and none of them had to do with speaking and spelling rightly.

Suddenly it seemed Dumbledore had other things to look at. His desk, the portraits of the old Headmasters, the windows, the clouds outside. It was getting grey, the threat of snow hanging heavy in the air. Harry was meant to have Quidditch practise out in that, and check his cauldron, and observe Fawkes now, and still mail his letter and worry over Draco's dad and Neville and apolosing to Hermione and magical allergies and Snape and Quirrell and his head- just- hurt, and he sat down again, because the weight of everything in his head made it too hard to stand.

It seemed a long time later when Dumbledore spoke. When he did, it was in a slow considering way, almost as if he spoke to himself, as if he'd forgot Harry was there, but he said Harry's name, and then: 'I find myself confronted with evidence of something I have ignored too many times before. To the detriment of students in my care. I can tell you a great many reasons why; not least that I am not a man who can easily stand in judgment over the mistakes made by others, and not least that I believe even those who make dreadful mistakes must have every opportunity to change, and grow into the fullness of their potential. I must believe that, Harry. But intellectual honesty compels me to examine my assumptions. Is it possible that my personal beliefs interfere with the pursuit of truth? Is it possible that I omit facts and information which are obvious to others in my desire to see only the conclusions I already believe? Have I some unacknowledged incentive to believe deception where it supports my existing bias?'

Fawkes waddled up Harry's wrist to bundle into his sleeve. His soft claws scrabbled against Harry's skin. He cawed, and it was a little more musical, maybe, if sleepy. He settled in for a nap, his nubby little wings laying flat on his heaving ribcage and his scrawny neck coming to rest on the cuff of Harry's shirt.

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, and let his name hover there in the air like the aura of a charm or a curse. 'Harry,' he said, 'please tell me about the cupboard under the stairs.'

Intellectual honesty, Dumbledore had called it. Harry didn't know what that meant, really, but he knew honesty, and longed for it. Harry closed his eyes. 'I don't recall the cupboard, sir.'

'Perhaps not consciously.'

'Did they... I... lived in there?'

'You were not overly panicked to find yourself locked in.' Dumbledore stroked his beard to the tip and folded his hands over his belly. 'Do you understand the means by which I saw the cupboard? There is a magical practise called Legilimency. It is both a spell and a skill which, if sufficiently honed, allows a witch or wizard to slip into the mind of anyone unwary. A truly skilled Legilimens can do so without a single trace left of their passage. I flatter myself I am one such. But you are aware of my skill, are you not? You have developed the habit of avoiding my gaze in recent months, and you were aware, not twenty minutes ago, of what I saw in your mind.'

Harry wet his lips. 'Yes, sir.'

'Your aunt was not. It can be helpful, with Legilimency, to have a subject already thinking of the things one wishes to review. Your aunt's stories about your childhood accidental magic, for instance. Her recitation bears an almost uncanny resemblance to her memories of your mother. And the visit to Gringott's- Petunia recalled her own journey through Diagon Alley with her sister and parents. Setting off to King's Cross to see off the Express. The Evanses were quite proud of their little witch.'

Harry's mouth was horrid dry. His eyes were horrid wet.

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, and then stopped himself and put his head in his hand. 'There are four files on my desk,' he said, somewhat muffled by his slumped posture, but Harry understood him all too well. 'The only balm to my sanity is that some years there are no files. Your name appears on one, Harry, and I think you might guess its contents.'

'I thought that was-' He almost admitted he'd overheard Pomfrey and the Headmaster. But then he checked himself, thought it through, and said it deliberately. 'I thought that was about Neville, sir. Neville Longbottom. They're really awful to him, aren't they, because they think he ought to be a great wizard.'

'The weight of expectations can drag down many a good heart that ought to know better. Harry, your hands, please.'

Harry gave them over. Dumbledore looked not at his knuckles, with the old scars, or his palms, with the callouses. He looked at Harry's fingernails, all bitten to the quick, and the sore skin surrounding the nails, picked and bloody.

'You didn't have these small injuries when you came to Hogwarts,' Dumbledore murmured.

'No, sir.'

'But I think I am right to guess you had others. Better hidden, perhaps.' Dumbledore petted Fawkes again, and let Harry go. 'Go fly, Harry. Be free from all concerns for a brief while. Leave the mysteries to those with reason to worry at them.'

'It seems like there's lots of mysteries at Hogwarts, sir. More than just you can solve.'

'There always have been, dear boy. Lo these many long years.'

Harry deposited Fawkes on his perch- well, in the bowl of ashes beneath the perch, since Fawkes hadn't any feathers to keep himself warm as he napped. He left a cracker in the bowl beside Fawkes, in case he got hungry, and took a wide path around the desk on his way to the door. But he couldn't help a glance back as he opened it to leave. Dumbledore still sat slouched low in the chair, his hand over his eyes.


	15. Omne Trium Perfectum

_In Which A Friendship Is Tested, A Promise Is Kept, And A Path Is Chosen._

'Hey, Harry.'

Harry turned into the hand clapping him on the shoulder, looking up at Cedric as the tall Hufflepuff joined him at the window. 'Hi,' Harry replied, making room on the window seat, and Cedric took it, sitting with his back to the panes and one knee cocked on the cushion to better face Harry, not the view of the Lake.

'Got a lot on your mind?' Cedric asked. 'Mum always told me my face was gonna stick that way.'

Harry twitched something approximating a smile, but couldn't hold it. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Yeah.'

'Yeah, you got a lot on your mind?' Cedric gave him a moment to respond, but didn't push when Harry dithered and didn't. Cedric brushed a hand through the wave of golden brown hair flopping over his forehead, and, somewhere behind them in the Library, a girl sighed dreamily. Cedric blushed slightly, cheeks pinkening, but ignored it manfully. 'You always do,' he said. 'Have a lot on your mind. Makes a nice change from people who can only talk about school or Quidditch or girls, or what have you, but. Guess I wouldn't be so eager to trade you for it. You look exhausted.'

Was that what it was? It felt like more than an uneasy sleep in the hospital wing or missing breakfast and luncheon because of Aunt Petunia and then Quidditch, though he was set to miss his supper at this pace, hiding in the library where at least he had quiet to consider the problems eating away at his stomach. He picked at his thumbnail with his teeth, worrying at a particularly sore spot. It didn't help.

He said, 'Cedric? You know what happened to Neville, don't you.'

The older boy hesitated. His eyes, Harry noticed, fell on the table where their Latin study group most often met. 'I thought maybe you didn't know,' Cedric confessed. 'It's not as well-known as what happened to your family.'

'I know a little.' It was Harry who hesitated now, seeking the right words. 'His parents... his parents were tortured.'

Cedric nodded gravely. 'It was the same day as your parents' being killed.'

Harry hadn't known that part. The thought of Halloween made him ill. 'Why them? What did they do? I mean- I mean not what did they do, I know you don't have to do anything for Voldemort to want to kill you.'

Cedric winced slightly when Harry said the name, but didn't ask him not to or stare at him for doing it so casually. 'They were Aurors,' he replied. 'Like your parents. They did arrest the Death Eaters who did it. I don't remember their names, but you could find it pretty easily. It was in all the papers. Why ask, Harry?'

Harry bit hard at his thumb. Around it, he mumbled, 'Neville's all right, you reckon?'

Cedric didn't answer right away. Harry risked a glance. Cedric wore a thoughtful frown, staring away from Harry into the depths of the library.

'As all right as you are,' Cedric answered finally, and met his eyes.

At the moment, Harry wasn't sure he knew what that meant. Maybe that was Cedric's point.

Cedric clapped him on the shoulder. 'Hey, you want to do a little flying after dinner? Just you and me? Sometimes I like to get out in the air when it's not for practise or a game, you know. Just me and the wind.'

That, thought Harry longingly, sounded beautiful. 'Can't,' he said, contriving to slide off the window seat and be busy with the strap of his satchel instead of explaining what, exactly, he'd be up to instead. 'Did you hear what they're serving tonight?'

'Chicken,' Cedric said, rolling his eyes broadly.

'I like chicken,' Harry replied.

'Oh, so it's your fault we have chicken all the time?' Cedric teased. 'Don't suppose you could let it slip you like bread pudding, would you? I'd like to see one of my favourites on the table for once.'

Harry fought off a queasy turn in his stomach. It was only a joke, and he knew that, but the element of truth in it was hard to ignore. If Harry let it slip, they'd be swimming in bread pudding by morning. 'I'll see what I can do,' he said, and forced a smile.

* * *

Fang's frantic barks answered Harry's tentative knock on the looming door of Hagrid's hut. Claws scrabbling against the wood bespoke the big hound's desperate attempt to burrow through to him, so Harry was fully braced when Hagrid opened the door. In retrospect, he ought to have gone limp instead. Fang bowled him flat the second he had room to spring.

'Off, you wretched thing,' Hagrid told Fang affectionately, hauling his collar. Fang's plate-sized paws waved ridiculously in the air, tongue lapping frantically as if he could lick Harry's face across the distance if he just tried hard enough. As it was, Harry had to remove his glasses to clean them of slobber. Fang had made short work of dousing him in drool. Hagrid got Harry to his feet too, dusting him off with a gentle pat, for a man his size, only sending Harry stumbling a little bit from the force of it. 'Harry, pleasant surprise! What brings you here?'

The note tucked in Harry's pocket had brought him. It had read only: _Hagrid's, after your supper_. Harry's heart was pounding as he tried to peer through Hagrid's open door. Between the big dog and the dog's bigger owner, however, Harry couldn't see anything. He took a glance over his shoulder, instead, scanning the pumpkin patch and garden for signs of Sirius Black. If Black were out there, however, Harry couldn't see him.

Hagrid led him in, and Harry closed the door behind him as Hagrid lumbered in with Fang, distracting the hound with a whistle and a treat, a big steak from the larder that he flung on the floor before the roaring hearth. Fang pounced, and fell to his dinner as if Harry had never existed, growling happily to himself as he attacked. 'Sit, sit,' Hagrid was telling Harry, plucking Harry's cloak from his hands as he shed it and hanging it on a peg, where it sat like a tea towel beside the duvet-sized moleskin coat Hagrid wore in the winter chill. But there was another cloak already hanging there, sized for a regular adult, and Harry whirled about eagerly.

There was a man sitting at Hagrid's kitchen table, sipping from a tankard. Remus Lupin met Harry's eyes, and smiled. Harry bit his lip against a grin of relief.

'Did you eat, Harry?' Hagrid asked him, donning a fuzzy mitt to remove a covered tray from the oven. The scent of slightly charred pheasant emerged in a cloud when Hagrid checked below the lid. 'Plenty to go round, I know you like your sprouts.'

Harry had barely been able to manage a few bites of pot pie in the Great Hall. 'Yes, please,' he said. 'Er, Hagrid...'

'Where's my manners!' Hagrid flung bits of gravy about the kitchen as he waved a ladle. 'Two guests and I'm all a-flutter. Remus Lupin, this is-' Hagrid puffed his chest up as he transferred the pheasant to the table with a clatter of tin. 'Harry Potter,' the half-giant announced proudly, ruddy cheeks glowing. 'Harry's a dear friend o' mine,' he added, with such sincerity that Harry wasn't at all embarrassed, the way he was when other people said things like that. Hagrid rubbed Harry's hair with the warm oven mitt. 'Harry, this here's Remus Lupin. Say, you might already know him? He was best of chums with yer dad when they was in school together.'

'Yes, I saw him in the paper,' Harry said.

Lupin put out a hand to Harry. There was a bit of solemn fun lurking in his eyes, a slight knowing smile. It wasn't at all as strange to shake his hand and pretend he was a stranger as it had been doing the reverse with Aunt Petunia. Lupin squeezed his fingers gently. 'It's a pleasure,' Lupin said softly.

'What a day, what a day,' Hagrid went on. 'I was down the pub- you know Hogsmeade, Harry? Lovely place, lovely- I was down the pub and who was there but Remus, you know, and I says why, I know that face, don't I, that's the best kind of surprise, runnin' into old friends. Well, we get to havin' a drink, don' we, and passin' tales of the old days, an' lucky Remus was there, him bein' an expert an' all-'

'Er, Hagrid,' Harry interrupted politely, but with growing alarm. 'What's that in your fireplace?'

Hagrid beamed at him. 'My dragon egg!'

Harry's jaw dropped. 'A- what egg?'

'Dragon,' Lupin repeated. 'And near to hatching, as it happens. Hagrid won the egg in a game of cards, I believe?'

'Nicest bloke, though a bit glad to be shot of the egg, worried about finding a proper home,' Hagrid recalled, cleaving a pheasant into thirds with a knife the size of Harry's leg. 'Asked me lots of questions about my experience, you know, raisin' up magical creatures. Tole him I've seen all kinds, and I have, haven't I, eh, Lupin? No better trainin' in care and keeping than Hogwarts, after all, loads of rare species in the Forbidden Forest, and who looks after 'em but me? I tole him after thestrals and kelpies and the occasional skrewt and all a dragon'll be a right challenge, but I was up fer it! Why, after Fluffy-'

'Hagrid,' Lupin interrupted, with a small sigh, and to Harry's surprise Hagrid blushed.

'Ta,' he told Lupin with a shameful duck of his head. 'There I go, mouth runnin' away with me. Nearly blurted that out in the pub, too. Good thing you were there, too, Lupin.'

'You're just passionate,' Lupin forgave him. 'Hagrid, you don't happen to have something lighter than ale for Mr Potter? It's fine for you and me, but he's a bit young.'

Hagrid snapped two sausage-sized fingers. 'Got a crate of butterbeer. You had one of those yet, Harry? Oh, you're gonna like this. Back in a mo.'

Harry was on pins and needles til Hagrid had gone out. He whipped his head about to Lupin, who had his wand out and a whispered ' _Silencio_ ' spewing from its tip almost before the door shut. 'Harry,' Lupin said, rising from his chair. They stood facing each other, each uncertain. 'You had a good Christmas?' Lupin asked, in a slightly stilted tone much unlike his warm and cheery letters.

But perhaps he was only reacting to Harry, who tried to shake the tension in his shoulders. 'You look different than I expected,' Harry confessed.

'Different?'

'I've never seen you dressed up like a wizard.'

Lupin brushed a hand over his long grey robe, tugging self-consciously at the Hufflepuff-yellow edging that sat crooked on the line of his shoulders. 'I haven't worn these in a decade or so. It's... different... for me, too.'

'So you didn't really just run into Hagrid in Hogsmeade?'

'No. I've lived as a Muggle for many years now, and I had no reason to leave Crowhill whilst you were there.' Lupin sat slowly, with a gesture at one of the other chairs at the table. Harry climbed the lower rungs and sat, swinging his legs, cramming his hands beneath his thighs to stop their twitching. 'I only have so many excuses for popping up in the vicinity now. Minerva might have let me see you again, but I don't want to pressure her. She's kept our secrets, but if the Dursleys have involved themselves... well.'

Harry nodded, but a particular word in that speech had caught his notice. Our. It wasn't just Harry's secret- Harry's problem. Harry swallowed, and asked, 'Professor? The business with the entail? That's you?'

'That's me.' Lupin glanced to the door, but he must have judged they had the time for it. 'I didn't tell you,' he said, 'because it's a complicated and lengthy legal process. I didn't want to raise your hopes in case it failed.'

The tension fell out of his spine for real, at that. He hadn't known how much he wanted to hear a reason for being kept in the dark. 'You think it won't work?'

'I've made the best case I have. It may still fail. The goblins... you may have noticed there's no love lost between goblins and wizards, but it can be even worse between goblins and- other sorts.' There was the briefest of pauses between those words. 'My claim wouldn't hold under Wizarding law. I'm placing my bets on the goblins choosing to hate me less for what I am than they hate wizards for how they're treated in our society.'

Lupin seemed braced as he said that. His hands twisted over each other in his lap. Harry was remembering with sudden etched clarity how the goblin Griphook had sneered at Lupin in his office in Gringott's-

 _'The word "willing" has been spoken twice.' The goblin turned fully to face Harry, stroking the feather of the quill between its claws. 'I should like a statement from Mr Potter as to his willingness to retrieve funds with this... person... at his side.'_

 _'It's for school things,' Harry said, unsure why it mattered. 'I'm very willing.'_

 _'Satisfied?' Lupin asked coolly. 'Or would you prefer a blood oath?'_

 _'A signature will do. I have no use for blood like yours.'_

 _'We could just go,' Harry whispered, uncomfortable. 'Or come back another day.'_

Harry scraped his lower lip with his teeth, and said, 'It's a stupid thing to hate people for. Not- not wizards, but. The other thing.'

Lupin's eyes dropped away as if he couldn't hold them up any longer. 'At any rate. It will probably be months yet before they issue a decision. If it goes through- if- it would allow my father to adopt the Potter name.'

'Your father?' Harry said, surprised by that, but their brief moment of privacy had passed, and Hagrid was back.

Lupin cancelled his silencing spell mid-word, but Hagrid, caught up in whatever story he was telling now- he had a million, he'd once informed Harry, and over Christmas had tried to get in at least a thousand of them- hardly noticed. 'And here ya go, Harry,' he added, plopping a slightly dusty bottle of something labelled 'Ogden's Topple For Tots' with a picture of a widely-smiling toddler toasting on repeat. 'Shh,' he added with a wink, and tapped the tip of his pink umbrella, in which Harry strongly suspected Hagrid had hidden a wand he didn't seem to want people to know he had, to the bottle, which promptly frosted over. 'Best chilled,' Hagrid said, 'even in winter.'

'I absolutely agree,' Lupin chimed in. 'Your hospitality is unmatched, Rubeus.'

Hagrid puffed himself up again at that compliment, and Harry seconded Lupin with a hearty thanks. Hagrid was so pleased he served Harry the largest plate of food he'd ever seen, piled as high as whole platters meant for the entire table in the Great Hall.

Though it was a pleasant way to pass an evening, Harry couldn't stay long. First Year curfew was eight o'clock, and Harry needed time to get himself back to the Gryffindor dormitories. Lupin and Hagrid each had a pipe after the meal, and Harry was given another butterbeer to sip as they all sat before the fire, but Harry had too much on his mind to listen as the men discussed the dragon's egg, which seemed to Harry to be twitching really rather frequently as it baked in a bucket of ash in the hearth.

'-get the egg to a safe place,' Lupin was saying.

Hagrid pulled a mournful face. 'Don't suppose I could just...'

'Dragons need room and wild to grow,' Lupin said gently. 'I know your feelings on the treatment of magical creatures, Rubeus, but in this case the Sanctuary would be a better choice.'

Hagrid sneaked a quick glance at Harry when Lupin said 'creature', but Harry didn't know what to make of that, and merely stowed it away for later. 'Thought you of all people would feel diff'rent,' Hagrid muttered into his beard, hunching his bulky shoulders.

'Asking even a willing dragon to restrain its true nature so close to a source of magic like Hogwarts would be an unbearable strain. For a hatchling it might not be so insurmountable, but an adolescent? It would be like nails on a chalkboard, every moment of every day. In the Sanctuary it won't be alone, and it will won't have that torture so near to hand.'

'Why can't dragons be near magic?' Harry asked tentatively.

'To one degree or another all magical beings require the proximity of magic, in the way plants require sunshine for energy,' Lupin explained, consciously or unconsciously taking on his 'professor' tone, so familiar from the bland classrooms of Crowhill. 'But magical creatures- beings classed differently than humans, who express magic via spells and the use of tools such as wands and other artefacts- respond to accumulations of magic at a level I'd call, well, emotional, perhaps. They feel the magic and react to it. It's not just a force of physics, like gravity, present but unremarkable. Wizards hoard magic, and creatures can feel it in places where enough of it is gathered, and a place like Hogwarts reeks like rotting onions. That's why there's such proliferation of magical creatures here- centaurs and unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, bugbears and minotaur... werewolves... and non-sapient creatures like skrewts and thestrals and striges. Merkin live in the Lake, and the mountains have troll clans and giants. Dragons, once upon a time, but they're too territorial and require too much space. A dragon wouldn't be able to avoid Hogwarts. Living too near a site like Hogwarts would be painful, and inevitably there'd be some curious student who'd cast the wrong spell and try to hurt it. Or they'd call the Regulators, you know they would, Hagrid. It would come to an ugly end.'

Hagrid sighed over his pipe. His eyes lingered sadly on the egg. 'I know you're right,' he grumbled. 'Just in't fair.'

Harry patted Hagrid's knee. 'It would've been really interesting, though,' he said, trying to cheer his friend. 'I wish I could've seen the dragon.'

Lupin glanced sharpish at the egg, which rocked against the side of the bucket suddenly, emitting a little 'ting' as it clunked the side. 'I think you may get your wish,' he said with a certain resignation, but that was lost in Hagrid's sudden delight.

'Ohh, it's coming!' Hagrid crowed, and took a dash for the door. 'Fang! Here's a lad, hurry-'

Lupin crouched over the bucket, poking cautiously with a finger. 'Probably within the hour,' he said. 'Which makes you late for bed, Harry.'

'I have my invisibility cloak. I rather thought... I rather thought there'd be a lot of talking. Maybe.'

Lupin let his weight carry him down to a seat on the floor, twisting about as he settled so he had an eye on Harry and the bucket both. 'Me, too, Harry. It's all gone so much more complicated than it was at Crowhill, and that's saying something.'

'Yeah.' Harry slid out of his chair onto the ground beside Lupin, putting his back to the warm brick of the hearth. 'Professor, I need to tell you something.'

'And I need to tell you something, I think.' Lupin canted his chin down to look at Harry. 'You want first, or shall I?'

'Er... you, maybe. Yeah.'

Lupin wet his lips, and cleared his throat softly. 'The trick with the entail. You'll have the whole of it at some point, if it works. I didn't withhold it purposefully, I didn't... it's like a good jumper, you know, with one loose yarn, and if you start tugging it all unravels and you can never get it back to snuff. It's our lives that got so twisted, Harry, not yours, but I bound you up in it.'

Silence fell. Harry said, 'Is that the thing you wanted to tell me?'

The little wrinkle beside Lupin's mouth deepened in a momentary smile. 'No. Right. Both feet in. If it works, the entail, that is, my father will be able to take the Potter name. It won't mean much to you, in legal terms, except that you will be, legally, related. Which means- or at least was meant to mean- that if the Dursleys ever became an issue, my father would have standing to apply for your guardianship. You did like him? I know he's got a bit of a crust to him, but he's kind, and good, and you could trust him.'

'Yes, sir.' Harry glanced at the egg, which hit the side of the bucket again. 'Why not you, though?'

'I don't have any standing in court. It's a stretch to say my father has, as relates to you. That's the...' Lupin cleared his throat again. His chest heaved beneath his robe. 'The petition for entail requires some legal right of relation, and my petition stretches the definition of legal to its limit.' He touched his breast, then opened his robe and removed a photograph from the breast pocket. Harry took it curiously.

'I've seen this before,' Harry said, before he thought better of it. Lupin only looked at him, but it was enough to make Harry blush. 'It's Sirius Black, isn't it.'

'I hope an explanation is part of what you intended to tell me. But let me get through it, or I'll lose my nerve.' Lupin touched the frayed edge of the much-folded photograph. In it were two boys, in a compartment of what was clearly the Hogwarts Express, with its rich velvet and gold interior. One of the boys was Lupin, glancing shyly away, but the other was Sirius Black, looking at the camera with a confident smirk. Lupin's fingertip pointed out the wink of metal at Black's wrist, and then the same on his teenaged self's left hand. Some kind of bracelet or cuff. 'We were seventeen. Leaving Hogwarts. We knew it was- those days- it's hard to explain. Those days. The last wave of Dragon Pox had killed so many, and Voldemort swept through the ashes and the grief with the promise of a purge of the unworthy who'd survived. The four of us boys and your mum, we knew it would be war. We made all sorts of silly oaths, the sort of thing you do when you're that age, but Sirius and I... we...' Lupin's voice went so dry it vanished. 'We made a special vow to each other. My father is petitioning for entail on the basis of his relationship to you, via my vow to Sirius Black, who's your godfather. It all rests, really, on the strength of the oath.'

'We read about oaths in Charms. There's an oath for every other thing and laundry day besides.'

Lupin's twitch of a smile returned. 'Yes, there is. Wizards have a lot of time on their hands.'

'Dumbledore told Aunt Petunia he thought they should move all my things out of my vault.'

'Did he.' Lupin dropped his head back to the brick. 'You probably haven't got long, then. Once Dumbledore decides on a thing, he moves.'

'I don't want him to have my things. It's not that I don't think he'll give them back...' Even as he said it Harry was unsure. He supposed what he really thought was that it wouldn't be that easy. 'Can you move it all for me?'

'No,' Lupin apologised in a breath. 'They won't give me access to your vault without you there beside me.'

'What about Sirius Black?'

Lupin looked at him for so long that Harry began to wonder what could be keeping Hagrid. There was only the crackle of the flame and the rocking of the egg, which was growing agitated. Then Lupin put his hand on the back of Harry's neck. 'You need a haircut,' he said, his thumb stroking through the long hairs brushing Harry's collar, but then he tugged, and Harry followed the gentle pressure down to lean his cheek on Lupin's shoulder.

Hagrid made enough noise that his return gave them time to move apart. Hagrid came bursting into the hut with Fang barking at his side; Hagrid dragged two sloshing buckets with him, and Harry stared in revulsion to see that one was full of blood. 'Chicken blood and whiskey,' Hagrid told him, pouring the one into the other and giving it an enthusiastic swirl with the ladle. 'All they'll eat their first few days. Not bad for a first meal, eh, Harry?'

'I'd prefer toast, personally,' Harry said, eyeing the proceedings with misgiving.

It all seemed to go very rapidly and very anxiously after that. Lupin helped Hagrid arrange the egg on the floorboards, with warm faggots from the fire stacked high about it. 'No, don't help it or hold it,' Lupin warned him. 'The mother dragon abandons her eggs at the point of hatching. It's up to our little hatchling here to do the deed alone.'

Harry found himself holding his breath, gnawing on his thumbnail. Hagrid paced and Fang whined, and Lupin was tapping his fingers relentlessly. And then- the first crack! It was so forceful it nearly split the egg in perfect halves. Hagrid's gasp covered the second crack, but the third popped a little chip out of the egg, and Harry could see something wriggling at the tiny hole. A claw. It pushed away a bit of shell the size of a fingertip, and then, then, it made its first noise- a rasping, grating caw of hunger. Harry sneaked a glance at Hagrid's face, and saw it suffused with joy, tears streaming unabashedly into his wild beard.

And then with a mighty shudder, the dragon hatchling broke his shell into two neat halves. The dragon stood in the wreckage, a proud arch to its serpentine neck, its wet wings laying like the crumpled fabric of a black umbrella, too weak to do more than flutter as the dragonette stretched his new bones. Imperiously it eyed them each, one by one, and then it opened its jaws in a wide yawn, croaked at them like a bullfrog, and discovered its own tongue, a long forked thing that wiggled experimentally. The dragonette went cross-eyed trying to examine it, wobbled on its hindlegs, and abruptly fell over sideways.

Hagrid mopped his eyes with the tip of his beard. 'He's beautiful, in't he,' he marvelled.

'I think he's funny.' Harry reached, then hesitated, but Lupin nodded- 'Carefully,' he warned- and so Harry touched it. Its hide was sort of rubbery, but sleek and soft and leathery too, drying already in the warmth of the embers. There were claws on the tips of its wingbones, like bats had, and it had spines on its back, curled limply now but already stiffening. It latched onto Harry's finger with its soft small paws and its needle-like teeth pricked Harry's skin. It gnawed at him hungrily, startling Harry into a laugh.

'Who is that?'

Harry craned his head. Lupin had stood, and was looking out the window. Harry saw a flash of pale colour in the garden beyond- a familiar shade of ginger red.

'Ron,' Harry said, and went running.

* * *

He didn't catch up to Ron til they were nearly at the standing stones. Only three nights ago Harry had confronted Draco there, and Sirius Black had broken Harry's wrist. 'Ron!' Harry called, risking someone hearing them in his desperation, and Ron at last slowed, his shoulders slumping. He let Harry grab him by the arm and drag him into the lee-side shadow of the tallest stone.

'I wasn't going to tell,' Ron mumbled.

'Why were you there?'

'I was just-' Ron wore a blush of shame, though his lower lip was sullenly out-thrust and he wouldn't look Harry in the eye. 'I miss you, s'all.'

'It's not like I've been gone.'

'You don't tell me anything!'

That was closer to the truth. 'There's reasons,' Harry said.

'So tell me those too.' Suddenly Ron turned on him fiercely. 'I'm your friend, Harry, you said I was your first friend. Well- you were mine, too, really. I'd do anything you asked me, you know that.'

This was a radical concept for Harry. It put everything he'd ever thought on its ear, somehow. 'But- you have family. All your brothers and your sister and your parents-'

'And a load of cousins and great whatevers, yeah,' Ron dismissed them. 'S'not the same as friends.' He climbed up on his knees, his passion carrying him nearly to standing again before Harry dragged him back down to keep him hidden from the castle's view. 'Look, it's obvious you've got all kinds of secrets-'

'I haven't, really, Ron.'

'You have,' Ron retorted fiercely, but shushed when Harry gestured in alarm. 'You have. Christmas with the Malfoys, don't tell me Draco didn't twist your arm to do that, and when you came back you all but vanished over New Year. All that reading in the library. And whatever it is going on with Snape, and Quirrell too for that matter, those special lessons, and special preferment in class. I'm not blaming you, it was always going to happen just because you're Harry Potter, and I get why you can't tell me, but what if you could? I'd help you any way I could, and I can keep your secrets, too, I keep loads for Fred and George at home, I never told anyone about half the things they were up to in their room. And I can help, Harry, you know I could!'

That was a fairly accurate assessment of the things weighing on Harry, it was true. 'Help me,' Harry repeated slowly, 'with what?'

'With anything!' Ron savaged his lower lip between his teeth, and then his face lit. 'My brother Charlie!'

'Charlie? What about him?'

'He's a dragonkeeper! In Romania. You know, Mum and Dad just visited him. He works at a dragon sanctuary and I bet he'd know how to take care of the dragon. And, he could come in quiet and do it without getting Hagrid in trouble for having a dragon egg, that's illegal, you know.'

'Illegal?' Harry hadn't known that. Lupin had been awfully sanguine about it if that was true. 'Well... okay, yeah, I reckon that'd be helpful.'

'I'll write him an owl tonight.' Ron glanced at the moon, half-full and very bright white in the clear sky. 'Well, first thing tomorrow.'

'Harry.' It was Lupin, approaching them slowly uphill. He wore his hood, and he carried Harry's invisibility cloak, which he spread over Harry the moment he was near enough. Harry watched the frosted grass appear as if his body didn't exist. Lupin crouched down beside them. 'This must be Mr Weasley,' he guessed. 'I'd know that hair anywhere. Harry's told me quite a lot about you, Ron.'

Ron stared with wide eyes. 'Um, yes, sir,' he said dubiously. 'Harry...?'

'My name is Remus Lupin,' Professor Lupin told Ron, putting out a hand. Ron shook it. 'I'm a friend of Harry's.'

'Interesting friends,' Ron said.

'Loyal friends,' Lupin corrected. 'Harry's an excellent judge of character that way. When I heard he'd fallen in with a Weasley, I knew he was in good hands.'

Ron sat a little straighter, obviously flattered by that. 'You're not a Muggle, though? I thought Harry grew up with Muggles?'

'I imagine you can understand, Ron, why the question of where Harry grew up needs to be discussed with utmost care.' Lupin dangled his hands between his knees, lightly laced. 'There are a lot of things about Harry that require discretion and caution. I think the Weasleys have always proved themselves to be people who have those qualities in abundance. Your brother Bill, for instance. He's been around lately.'

Ron's brows drew together. 'Well... yeah. He's a teacher's assistant.'

'Not a curse breaker for Gringott's?'

'He said he's taking a holiday from work.'

'Along with all these others who have taken a sudden holiday.'

White showed all the way round Ron's blue irises. 'You know about the Vee Nicks stuff?'

Lupin shrugged a little. 'I know there are things happening with certain people who have secrets of their own. But I'm more concerned about the things that help protect Harry.'

Harry had sat silent through this, wondering at Lupin's manner. He was clearly handling Ron, and it was just as clearly working. But he didn't know what Lupin was handling him toward.

'I want to help protect Harry,' Ron said boldly.

'I know,' Lupin nodded. 'Harry wrote to tell me how worried you were about the Malfoys. You have good instincts. And you know the history of the war. Those are skills Harry needs at his side. Watching.'

Spots of colour had reappeared in Ron's cheeks, but it wasn't shame this time, it was excitement. 'I can do that.'

'Harry and I were just talking about oaths,' Lupin said. 'Have you ever sworn a wizard's oath, Ron?'

'No. I mean- over stupid things, you know, but I think half of those were made up, Fred and George were always teasing like that.'

'Well, it doesn't hurt anything, you know, those silly sorts of oaths. They're not really binding. But a proper oath, a real wizard's vow? It rests on your honour. The magic only takes if you intend to keep your word.'

Lupin put out his hand again, and Ron took it eagerly. Lupin didn't speak right away, looking instead into Ron's eyes. And then he put out his other hand, to Harry. Harry took it slowly.

'Would you keep your word, Ron,' Lupin asked softly, 'to make Harry's safety a priority? To protect him, and care for him, and to ensure that he always has a friend at his side?'

Ron looked sideways at Harry, meeting his stare. 'I would,' he breathed, and Harry felt it, too; a warm flush of gently tickling wind down the back of his neck. But it was a still night, and there was no breeze. If that was magic, it was a kind he'd never experienced before.

'I believe you,' Lupin replied. He squeezed Harry's hand, and must have squeezed Ron's as well. 'So that starts it, then.'

Harry had to swallow to ease his throat enough to speak. 'Starts what,' he rasped.

Lupin squeezed his hand again- just his hand, this time, letting Ron go. 'Well, every group of comrades needs a jazzy name. Your dad used to call us the Marauders, did you know that? Doesn't really convey a sense of seriousness, though.' The moonlight caught on his pale yellow eyes. 'What do you two think?'

Ron tossed Harry a bright thrilled grin. 'Something with dragons, obviously.'

Lupin chuckled. 'Obviously. All right, now you two share that cloak and get back inside, will you? Hagrid and I will take care of the hatchling. I'll reach out to a few of the old crowd-'

'But that's what I was telling Harry, I could ask my brother Charlie to come get it, he wouldn't tell anyone!'

Lupin greeted Ron's declaration with a grave nod. 'Excellent. That's excellent, Ron. Tell him it's fairly urgent. The longer we hold it off, the harder it will be to conceal the dragonette.' With a final squeeze to Harry's hand, he let go. 'We'll talk more as we can. For now, heads down, all right? We each have our tasks.'

'I don't,' Harry said. 'What's mine?'

'The most important one of all. Decide who else you can trust, Harry.' He touched Harry's shoulder. 'We'll talk about that, and the thing you wanted to tell me, when we deal with the dragonette, all right?'

'Yeah.' Harry licked his teeth, and let Lupin's tug at the material of the invisibility cloak remind him. He threw a length of it about Ron, who ran an admiring hand over his now invisible chest. 'Pro- er, Lupin? What do I do about the vault?'

'Nothing, right now. I'll think about it, I promise that. Go on.' Lupin checked the path to the castle. 'It's clear. Get to bed, boys.'

'Tell Hagrid-'

'I will. Go on.'

They had a brief brush with Mrs Norris the cat as they hurried back through the castle, but Harry had enough experience now with sneaking about in the cloak to know she might smell them, but wouldn't be able to lead anyone to them. They had, as well, a bit of an argument with the Fat Lady in the portrait that guarded the Gryffindor common room, who was stricter about curfew during the school year than the hols, but fortunately an older student came along, and Harry solved their problem by pulling up the hood of the cloak and hiding on the sixth year's tail as she went in. From there they dashed up the stairs to their dorm, and only rid themselves of the cloak when Harry was sure none of the other boys were present. Harry stashed it in the bottom of his trunk, smashing down the lid and sitting on it just before Neville returned from the bath, a towel wrapped about his chubby waist and his shower caddy swinging in one hand.

'Hiyas,' Neville said. 'Where've you two been all night? You missed it, Fred and George pranked these two Ravenclaws and Professor Flitwick was in here for an hour haranguing them for how to undo the charms-'

'Oh, nothing,' Ron said, tone casual as could be, head turned to hide the wink he sent to Harry. He sat on the edge of Harry's bed as Harry changed into his sleeping shirt, and stayed sitting there as Harry selected a book for reading- he had long since discovered his History of Magic textbook was a surefire trick to a sound sleep- and climbed through the hangings to rest against his headboard. Ron dragged the nearest curtain closed, cutting them off from Neville's side of the room, and scooted near enough to Harry to knock knees.

'So who's that bloke Lupin?' Ron whispered. 'I thought you said you didn't know about wizards before you came to Hogwarts?'

'I didn't, but he's the one who told me.' Harry picked at a dangling thread in the leg of his pants. If he kept tugging it would loosen the hem. It would all come unravelled, just like Lupin had said. 'Ron, why did you do that?'

'Do what? Follow you? I already explained.'

'I mean take that vow.'

Ron wasn't a person who thought long or deep about things that weren't the Chudley Canons or ways to get back at his older brothers or chess strategy. But Ron thought long and deeply now, and Harry found himself leaning forward, wishing he could read the way Ron's eyelashes flicked or his mouth twisted to the side. If there was a magic spell for reading minds, Harry would have liked to know it just then.

In the end, Ron only shrugged. He said, 'You needed me to.'

Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose where his glasses sat a little heavy sometimes. 'Ron.'

'Sir Ronald Weasley,' Ron teased him, with a grin growing wide again. 'Of the... the... Knights of the Order of the Dragon.'

Harry scrunched up his nose, and chucked his glasses to the side. 'Too long.' And too much near the Order of the Phoenix, anyway, though Harry added that to the bucket of secrets he was hauling. It was too much to explain piecemeal.

'Yeah, and anyway I think there's a real Order of the Dragon in Hungary or Bulgaria or something. Percy'll know.' Ron dropped his elbows to rest on his knees, chin on his hand. 'Harry Potter and the... Court of the Dragon?'

'I'm not a king of anything,' Harry said flatly. 'Maybe it doesn't have to have a name.' Ron looked downcast at that, and Harry relented. 'Harry Potter and the Odds Bobs.'

'Harry Potter and the Legend of Hogwarts.'

'Harry Potter and the No Good, Very Bad Day.'

Ron laughed. 'At least it's got some truth to it.' He heaved a deep sigh and fell backwards on Harry's bed. 'Thanks,' he said, muffled slightly by Harry's duvet. 'For letting me.'

Harry heaved a sigh of his own, silent so Ron wouldn't hear. 'What are friends for,' he mumbled, and closed his eyes.

* * *

Ron posted his letter to Charlie before breakfast. Harry climbed to the owlery with him, playing the part of look-out as Ron used his brother Percy's owl without permission. Errol was a battered-looking thing, and Ron grumbled about it as he forced a few owl treats down the poor bird's beak, but when he thought Harry wasn't looking he stroked Errol's grey chest feathers. 'As fast as you can, Errol,' Ron begged, and launched him out one of the big archways.

'Ron,' Harry asked, as they went shivering back into the cold morning air, 'what's it's like, having wizards in your family all the way back?'

'Dunno,' Ron shrugged. 'It's normal, for me. Normal for you, for that matter. I know,' he said hastily, 'raised by Muggles, but only raised, yeah? I mean, your mum and dad both were wizards, and really strong ones, from everything I ever heard.'

'Do you remember the war?'

'No. I'm only a few months older than you. It was all over by the time I knew anything about it.'

Harry fetched up against the crumbly stone of the stairwell. His reluctance to go inside had nothing to do with the excellent view of Hagrid's hut perched on the rocky green of Hogwarts' lovely grounds. Mostly.

'At first all that felt really far away,' Harry said consideringly. He rubbed his palms over the scratchy stone, feeling the little circles of lichen with his fingertips. 'Like a story with names I already knew. And they were heroes and it was really exciting. But lately I think... last night I was thinking... it's still going, the story.'

Ron returned a step, putting his head even with Harry's with their mismatched height. 'You okay, Harry?'

'Ron, about that oath? The oath you took last night?'

Ron scrubbed at his nose. 'I already guessed,' he muttered. 'I mean, once I really thought about it. I'm not really your first knight, am I.'

Harry was took entirely off his guard. 'You're- what?'

'Your friend Lupin is.'

'Lupin?' Harry inhaled sharply, and held it. His mind had been a thousand leagues under the sea, not realising that Ron would still be starstruck by the events of the night before. It had only been the night before, hadn't it, even if Harry felt he'd aged double in the course of one sleepless night. 'He's not a knight. Not like that. If anything, I guess he's... I guess he's like Merlin, isn't he? The teacher and the secret keeper.'

'Those old King Arthur stories would be loads more interesting if Arthur'd been a wizard too.' Ron put his back to the railing, arms crossed over his fuzzy jumper and scarf. 'Merlin always had to solve everything for them with magic after they faffed off with swords and stuff, bangin' around the kingdom trying to kill giants and messin' it up. I always loved the story of Merlin and Nimue though, that was wicked. When Nimue Transfigures him into a tree and he can't get out to save Arthur? So cool.'

Harry laughed suddenly. 'God, that was real, wasn't it? That really happened.'

'Well, yeah.' Ron eyed him, then grinned. 'Muggles tell it different, huh?'

'Yes and no. Arthur was always the hero. I always wanted to be Arthur, or one of the knights, like Sir Gawain. Wear armour and ride a horse.'

'Why ride a horse when you can fly on a broom or Apparate?'

'If Charlie doesn't get the hatchling out of here, maybe we'll have our chance to fly a dragon.'

'He'll come. Charlie's sort of the spotted bowtruckle of the family, you know?'

'The what?'

'You know! The one who always climbs the wrong tree and gets seen. That's how wizards know which trees make good wands- they spot the bowtruckles in 'em. But a good bowtruckle would never be seen, would he?'

Harry wrinkled his nose. 'I'll take your word for it. Hermione can probably explain it to me- I'm sure it's in Hogwarts: A History.'

'Yeah, Chapter Umpteen and a Third, page nine thousand fifty eleventy.' Ron straightened on a groan. 'Oh, Harry, no!'

'Oh Harry no what?'

'You're not gonna make her a knight too, are you?'

If it were up to Harry the whole knight business would go away immediately and never be heard from again. He pretended to consider it, enjoying Ron's exaggerated grimaces, and then considered it for real, because Lupin's advisement- think about who he truly trusted- well, that was a good question. And not as long a list as Harry wished it could be.

'I'm hungry,' Harry lied. 'Let's get to breakfast so we're not facing dragon wrangling on an empty stomach.'


	16. When Zeus Would Destroy A Man

_In Which The Plot, Like A Well-Brewed Potion, Thickens._

Hermione's face was shining with excitement as she waved good-bye to Charlie Weasley and the other dragon keepers. Norbert's cage was carried on a sling of netting between them, hardly swaying at all as the men coordinated their lift-off with expert precision. Neville waved too, squeaking a little as if he wanted to holler farewell but remembered in time it was a covert operation. Hagrid was weeping into Hermione's kerchief, which was past soggy and now seemed to be a mere moment's interruption in the continued waterfall of tears to the ground. Professor Lupin reached up to pat Hagrid on the back with his left hand; his right was settled on Draco Malfoy's shoulder.

'Well,' Lupin said, when the dark cloaks of the dragon keepers had vanished into the night and no sight could be seen of them, 'I'm in desperate need of a cuppa. Rubeus, come sit.'

'Oh, Hagrid,' Hermione said, flinging her arms about the big man as far as they could go, looking rather as if she'd decided to embrace a tree. 'You heard Charlie, Norbert will be happy there.'

'I know,' Hagrid snuffled. 'Jus' a wee bit sad, is all.'

'Maybe a dram to take the edge off,' Lupin suggested, and at that Hagrid nodded with a sniff. 'In you go, everyone.'

The children, by mute consensus, retreated to the rug before the roaring fire. Ron had clumped in a bunch of muddy snow on his boots, and Hermione scolded him and made him go back to stamp them off, which gave Draco opportunity to get closest to the flames, at Harry's side. Everyone was still humming with the danger of it all, and Harry had a case of the jitters himself. It wasn't so much the danger of getting caught, though Harry had been worried about that all week, right up to the moment Norbert's crate had been loaded up and he'd realised they were going to get away with it. But rather what he felt now was anticipation. The night wasn't over.

Lupin had at last convinced Hagrid to settle in the big armchair, plying him with a very large mug which was mostly whiskey and a dram of tea. It was quite late, now well after midnight, and if Harry had been on tenterhooks all day Hagrid had been at it twice as hard. Harry wasn't surprised that Hagrid, wrung out as he was, fell to snoring, his chin drooping to his chest, the moment his whiskey was swallowed. Lupin got one enormous boot off him and Hermione struggled with the other, tipping over backward onto her bum when it finally slid off, revealing a very large foot with holey woollen socks. Lupin covered Hagrid with a quilt from the bed and joined the rest of the company seated on the rug.

'It'll be more of a risk to get you all back to the castle at this point than for you to just kip here for the night,' Lupin said softly. 'I can conjure cots for the lot of you. Any objections?'

'No,' Harry replied, answering for all. 'It'll be easier to sneak in at breakfast when there's crowds about.'

'Precisely.' Lupin refreshed Ron and Neville's tea with the steaming kettle. 'I hope I needn't impress on any of you the importance of continuing to keep silent on what we've all done here. While I doubt any of you would be in serious trouble if word ever got out, Hagrid would do. For his sake, treat Norbert as a kind of secret- not one you must never mention, but one that needs to stay between those in the know.' Lupin added a splash of milk from the crock to his tea, and sipped. 'Right exciting, wasn't it?'

A hastily-supporessed giggle escaped Ron. 'Glad we done it when we did. Norbert was nearly as big as Fang! Another night and he'd have been bigger than the crate.'

'Not to mention how Hagrid would've kept him fed,' Neville agreed. 'Bet we'll be short on chicken for a month.'

'The horror,' Draco muttered, so low Harry thought only he might hear, or only he was meant to. 'Merlin forbid we eat pork a night or two.'

'So you're a teacher?' Hermione asked, and Harry's ears perked toward that with some alarm. 'At Harry's primary?'

'It's a Muggle school,' Lupin explained calmly. 'You won't have your career-track discussions with your Heads of House til your fifth or sixth years, but there are far more wizards and witches than Ministry jobs or teaching positions in the magical academies. Especially in mixed households, it's not uncommon for folk to take on Muggle jobs.'

Draco's nose scrunched ever so slightly at this, in distaste or puzzlement. Of all his schoolmates seated in Hagrid's hut after a night of epic rule-breaking, Harry had been least sure about including Draco. But the thing that had kept Draco tight to his side all night was the thing that had most persuaded Harry Draco should be one of them: Draco had already kept the secret of Sirius Black, and that was far more dangerous a secret than Norbert. Well, the secret of Professor Lupin in addition to the secrets of Norbert and Sirius Black was a rather large amount to trust someone with, but Lupin was handling that with aplomb, and handling as well, he'd hinted vaguely, the question of Mr Malfoy and the Dursleys. Harry had put off discussing it with Draco, not least for lack of time. Draco had all but vibrated all week, snappish and caustic in class and anxiously clinging to Harry's side, even following him once all the way to the Fat Lady's Portrait barring the Gryffindor common room. Ron had picked a fight before Harry could invite Draco inside, and Draco had gone off like a dungbomb, with much the same effect on the Gryffindors inside.

But Harry had made his decision, and Draco had joined them in sneaking to Hagrid's to help corral Norbert into a crate (the dragonette had been in no mood to cooperate). He thought Draco would keep Hagrid's secret because Harry wanted him to. It felt different from knowing Ron wanted secrets with Harry, or even how it was with Hermione and Neville, who had turned out to be excellent plotters with nerves of steel. At least til it was over. Everyone else seemed to be feeling a bit wired, but Harry found himself sinking into a strange foggy lowness. He sipped his tea in silence, and let the others talk all round him without contributing more than a grunt or two. It wasn't long before Neville cracked a yawn, and after that went Ron, and Hermione and then Ron again, and when Draco muffled one behind a hand Lupin rose and began to Transfigure a bunch of canvas cots out of various bits and bobs. He conjured a screen, too, and blankets and sheets and even pyjamas, and the boys changed there by the fire as Hermione disappeared behind the screen, emerging in a house coat with her hair wrapped in a silk scarf with butterflies on it. Lupin tapped his wand to it, and the butterflies flapped their wings and flew off it to dance in the air.

'Oh, teach me!' Hermione gasped, and Lupin laughed a little and did indeed teach her the incantation. Harry could almost picture Lupin's blue pen marking her when she practised the little twirl and tap with the incantation- job well done, maybe even a double underline for emphasis. Harry lingered at buttoning up his shirt as the others climbed into the cots, settling quickly and sleepily as Lupin tucked in a blanket under the edge of a mattress here, set a pair of shoes out of the way there, lowered all the lamps to a comfortable dim. Lupin stood looking down at the children for a moment, then nodded to himself as if pleased.

For his part, Harry took a hand in spiffing up the place a bit, removing their tea cups to the sink and prising Hagrid's tankard out of his big hand. Hagrid puffed out his lower lip in a snort, settled in deeper, and lay his head back with his mouth open, eyes never so much as fluttering.

'I haven't taught girls in a long time,' Lupin commented, seating himself on the cowhide stool near the hearth. 'They're cleaner than boys, aren't they? I don't even know where the rest of you managed to find so much mud.'

'You were a teacher before Crowhill?' Harry wondered.

'I was, yes. I taught at Beauxbatons. It's the premier magical school for the French.'

'Oh.' Harry hadn't quite got round to questioning where children from other countries went to school. For a moment he thought it might be interesting, but only a moment. The desire to pursue it faded. 'Sorry,' he offered. 'I know you had a life before me and Crowhill and all that.'

'A life you're getting a proper chance at now. You have good friends, Harry.'

'Ron came up with a name for it. Us.' Harry glanced up to see Lupin's brow raised. 'The Knights of Jupiter.'

'Jupiter?'

Harry pushed his hair back to show his scar. 'Jupiter carries a bleeding huge lightning bolt, Ron says.'

'Language,' Lupin corrected him almost absently, and for the first time all night Harry smiled. Lupin smiled back. Then he slid from the stool onto the rug beside Harry. Another flick of his wand set up a distinct, if muffled, kind of buzz, and Harry recognised it as the silencing spell McGonagall had cast once when they spoke in the common room.

'Harry,' Lupin said, 'has Sirius Black approached you again?'

Harry breathed out slowly. 'Yeah,' he confessed in a whisper.

Lupin didn't say anything for a minute, but Harry could see the thoughts formed and discarded, the words being carefully sorted. When Lupin did speak, it was to murmur, well controlled, 'I wish you had told me, Harry. Not to yell at you or punish you, but to explain better where you had unanswered questions.'

Harry removed his glasses to fiddle with the earpiece. 'He says he didn't do it.'

'I'm afraid he did, Harry. I admit,' Lupin said cautiously, 'when you told me how he was with you in the Forbidden Forest, I- hoped. But maybe it's possible to hold two thoughts in your head at once; hating your parents enough to be the instrument of their death, and still feeling responsible for someone you hated.' There was a brief, taut pause. 'But I've gone over everything again, to be sure I had it correct, and I asked certain others I could trust to be objective to review it all again as well. His guilt is irrefutable.'

'He says it was Peter Pettigrew.'

'Then that's a vile lie,' Lupin whispered. 'The bravest thing Peter ever did was confront Sirius that night. Sirius killed him. And thirteen innocent Muggles, you can't forget that.'

The tight line of Lupin's mouth came into focus as Harry replaced his glasses on his nose. Harry hesitated. 'He says Peter killed the Muggles. And shouted at him to make it look like Sirius's fault, and escaped.'

'That's not possible,' Lupin said, patient despite the obvious pain it caused him. 'There were witnesses. And, Harry, the Aurors recovered a part of Peter's body-'

'His finger, I know. Sirius says Peter cut it off and turned into a rat and ran away. He says Peter was the Secret Keeper, not him.'

Lupin's mouth was open to contradict him one more time. But he froze that way, eyelashes shivering as his eyes looked back on memories Harry couldn't share.

'I don't know if it's true,' Harry confessed. 'He's... he's not all there, I reckon, I can see that much, but he was awfully sure of it.'

Lupin came back to life with an abrupt swallow. 'I don't know, Harry. And I don't know how we'd find out. All the people who could confirm that are dead. Or... Peter... but where would he have gone? I- no.' Lupin shook his head almost violently. 'No. Harry, listen to me. True or not, Sirius Black is still dangerous to you. The reason I didn't warn you immediately when he escaped Azkaban was my assumption, evidently erroneous, that he would be far more interested in running to ground somewhere safe than in seeking out the son of people he murdered. I don't know why he'd come to you with some tale of tragically misplaced blame and false imprisonment, I don't know why it would be so important to him to convince you, not me- I mean, people who would have been his friends, back then, people in a position to help him now if he really was innocent. But I don't think it's wise to be alone with him. So I'm going to ask for your promise. I know you may not entirely agree with me, but I hope you will agree that your safety is more important than taking risks only to learn misinformation. I don't know why Sirius has concentrated on convincing you of his innocence, but I know he has every motivation in the world to lie to you.'

'But that's the thing,' Harry protested. 'I don't think he was, I don't think he can even. You didn't see him, sir, he's all over dirt and he's starving and I think he's living in the Forest, he's-'

'He's got access to his vault in Gringott's. He could purchase very nearly anything he wanted without having to so much as walk into a shop. And he has a half-dozen properties. The Blacks were a very wealthy Pureblood family. If he had any needs, Harry, it would be the simplest thing to pay for them by owl anonymously.'

Unbidden, Harry remembered. Sirius had been paying for things by owl. He'd paid for Harry's broom, and those clothes. Doubt pricked at him.

Lupin went on at Harry's silence. 'Your promise, Harry. I hope you will promise me that you won't seek him out, and that if he seeks you out, you will run and find someone else. Someone from the Order of the Phoenix, preferably, or a teacher, but at the least one of your friends. Now, and this is important: do you know if he has a wand?'

Harry shook his head mutely. He hadn't seen Sirius use a wand, but then again he wasn't entirely sure if Black could carry much with him when he was transformed into a dog.

Lupin considered his own wand, laid across his lap. 'Do you have a plan to see him again?'

A faint shameful flush tinged Harry's ears hot. 'Yeah,' he mumbled. 'On Saturday. I thought I could get away after supper.'

'Where do you meet him?'

'In Hagrid's garden. Hagrid goes inside usually, and it's dark early so no-one's about outside.'

'You have any other way of getting messages to him? Or receiving them from him?'

Harry hedged on that. Sirius hadn't sent him an owl since Christmas, and Harry had never tried to reply. 'No,' he said. 'And we've really only, well, the once, sort of, if you don't count him saving me from the men in the Forest or the troll.'

'The troll,' Lupin repeated, and lifted his hand from his wand to grip Harry's fist instead. 'Harry, I can understand why you'd want to have secrets or feel you might need to keep some things from me, but not about this, please. Please tell me everything I need to know to protect you.'

Guilt crawled through his gut. He couldn't even truly remember why he'd felt he had to keep that from Lupin, only that he hadn't been sure, and it was painfully obvious now what an inadequate bit of logic that had been. 'I'm really sorry, Professor.'

'Don't be sorry.' Lupin squeezed him tightly. 'All right. Saturday, I don't want you to come. I'll be here, instead. If Sirius is innocent, he deserves a hearing. If he's not, and I still think he's not, then it's better for me to confront him. I know- knew him, I knew how he fights, how he thought. I'll stand a greater chance than others might of coming out on top in a duel.'

'You can duel?' Lupin wasn't the most robust fellow, though he wasn't as poorly as Sirius Black. Then again, Harry remembered how Lupin had been the night he'd gone after Mr Thompkins for hurting Harry. Lupin in a rage was formidable.

'If there is a duel,' Lupin said, 'if I'm hurt or even killed, go to Dumbledore and tell him everything.'

'No,' Harry protested, alarmed at- well, everything in that. 'You said we couldn't tell Dumbledore!'

'If I'm gone, Harry, your protection is unacceptably thin. Even if my petition of entail went through after that I don't know if would be enough to safeguard you. I don't know what Dumbledore will do with the truth, but it's too much a burden for you to handle alone.'

'What about McGonagall, why can't I ask her for help? She already knows about the Dursleys!'

'Minerva has served as Deputy Headmistress for nearly two decades and I fear she wouldn't stand against Dumbledore if they came to odds. It would be same for any Light family you turned to, like the Weasleys or the Longbottoms. You can't fully comprehend how Dumbledore is viewed in Wizarding society, Harry. Many a Light family would give over their own sons if Dumbledore said it was necessary, and even more so with you, the Boy Who Lived. They'd believe there must be a reason, because they believe Dumbledore is all-knowing and very nearly all-powerful.'

'You don't,' Harry pointed out.

'But I did once. And maybe I'd have gone on thinking that, except that I'd lost so much all at the once, and he...' Whatever had happened then, Lupin didn't say it. He rested with his eyes briefly shut, his lips pressed tightly together, and when he looked up again the words had been swallowed back and so had Harry's chance to find out the truth of it. Lupin said only, 'Dumbledore is powerful, Harry, maybe the most powerful wizard alive, but no man is all-knowing. He can't protect you if he doesn't know enough to do so. Promise me you'll be wise, and accept his help if I'm gone.'

That was two promises Lupin has asked of him. But, for the second time, Lupin seemed to think that the asking was the same as Harry consenting. He didn't make Harry say yes or repeat the words or pinky-swear or even nod his agreement. And Harry didn't not do those things because he was trying to trick Lupin, exactly, but he knew in the moment he didn't offer that and Lupin went on talking as if Harry had that they both had different ideas of what had just gone on. Harry felt a little squirm of guilt in his belly, but it wasn't exactly lying, and it wasn't exactly breaking his word, either; and anyway maybe it wouldn't ever matter, because if Sirius was telling the truth then Lupin would never be hurt and it was a lot of fuss over nothing.

Lupin cast a short ' _Finite_ ' and his anti-eavesdropping spell vanished. 'Get some sleep,' he advised, rising and offering Harry a hand to his feet. 'Harry,' he asked, when Harry had stood and shoved a finger up under the lense of his glasses to rub at the grit in his eyes, 'those aren't your glasses.'

'Oh.' Harry removed them, fidgeting with the nosepieces. 'These were a gift.'

'From whom?'

'Professor Snape.'

'Snape.' For the first time ever, Lupin's face looked blank in utter surprise. 'Snape gave you glasses?'

'For Christmas.' And there was a lot else to say about Snape, but a yawn stole over Harry, and by the time he'd got through it Lupin was steering him toward one of the cots. Harry crawled under the blanket and could hardly raise his head from the pillow as Lupin put out the last of the light, so that everything was dark except for the fire, which sank down to its warm embers, casting dim shadows up the ceiling. Harry removed his glasses and tucked them beside his wand under his pillow. Lupin's hand rested on his shoulder for a moment, and Harry mumbled something passable as a good-night. He tried to listen for Lupin's reply, but afterward he wouldn't remember if he'd ever heard it.

* * *

The first adventure of the Knights of Jupiter- Ron's name for them was catching on- had gone off a success. No-one seemed to have noticed there had ever been a dragon on school grounds, much less that a group of first years had sneaked it out again.

There was plenty left over to think about, however, and Harry felt that all he did that week was ponder them all. In Quidditch he was roundly scolded by Oliver for absent-mindedness; Harry made an effort to put it all aside and concentrate on their practise, taking a few riskier runs with the Nimbus to prove he was invested in the win, as Oliver constantly harangued them to be. Harry pulled out of a diving feint to the dim sound of cheers, and found his Slytherins waving for him. Flushed with pleasure, Harry waved back.

'Potter!' Wood barked.

'Sorry.' Harry dodged the bludger Fred and George were beating back and forth between themselves.

'Oi, Potter,' said one of them, George he thought, though he'd begun to realise they had a habit of switching gear and you couldn't trust the surface identifiers. 'Interesting fan club.'

'They're my friends,' Harry defended them.

'Not them, you silly bugger.' Fred, he thought, got to his left, close enough that Harry turned reflexively to avoid collision, and found himself moulded to George, who guided them in a full about-face toward the castle. No, the gate, where a figure in dark robes was watching, nearly invisible in the shadows. Snape.

'Potter!' Wood bellowed, and Harry gave George-or-Fred a shove and swooped off to collect the Quaffle for another run.

But Snape was everywhere that week, now Harry knew to look for him. He was watching Harry eat at meals in the Great Hall, he was patrolling the corridors between classes, he even found an excuse to step in on Harry's Wednesday Herbology class to collect a basket of fresh ingredients from Professor Sprout. Harry pretended not to notice the burning eyes searing the hair off the back of his head, but inside he felt a chill. He did not need to be told this was something different than Snape making a few concessions toward a more courteous relationship. He was braced for Friday's Potions Lab, and Harry thought Snape's overlarge nose must have the keenest sense of smell ever, because he sniffed out the secret the Knights of Jupiter were keeping as soon as they stepped into the lab. Snape glared blackly at them as he stalked his usual route about the classroom. Harry slouched as low as he could on his stool, ducking his head toward Hermione and being very careful not to make so much as a peep as they chopped slugs.

Snape stood just between his desk and the one Ron, Neville, and Seamus shared, plainly deciding which one of them would crack first. He settled on Ron, and swooped down like a hawk going in for the kill.

'Weasley,' he said, not especially loudly, but every student's head turned at the crawling danger of that tone. 'Exactly what did I just watch you do?'

'Er...' Ron hunched as far away as he could get from the professor bending near his cauldron. Seamus unsubtly shoved him back. 'Add the lindberghy pods?'

'Whole?'

'Uh... smooshed.'

'Smooshed,' Snape repeated, drawing it out so long it almost had extra syllables. 'Is that as instructed on the board?'

Ron's face was nearly as red as the lindberghy juice staining his mat. 'The board says to crush them through the sieve.'

'Does it? What does your book say? I assume you have the receipt memorised, since your book is closed and still resting in your rucksack.'

Hermione was savaging her lip with her teeth, as if she could will the right answer into Ron if she tried hard enough. Harry caught her hand before she could raise it and held it down.

'Well, Weasley?'

'Dunno, sir.'

'Five points, Weasley, for determined ignorance and for wasting your ingredients. No, don't pluck them out, boy, they're already contaminated from contact with the slugs, and those likewise. I'd tell you to begin again, but you haven't the time to correct your mistake before close of class. You'll have to soldier on. Longbottom- words aren't sufficient for what you're doing to those misfortunate invertebrates. Five points.' Snape turned on his heel, raising gooseflesh up the back of Harry's neck. 'Potter.'

Harry sucked in a long deep breath. 'Yes, sir.'

Snape circled slowly around him. He came a halt in front of Harry's desk, but his body kept moving, leaning in, his hands planting themselves to either side of the cauldron balanced on the low flame between Harry and Hermione. He did not touch it, but examined it at length, sniffing the small curl of steam rising off the marinating slugs, testing the consistency of the sludge that ran down the stirring rod.

'Class,' Snape said, and Harry was not alone in flinching. Snape straightened, his hands disappearing inside his sleeves. 'All of you, out of your seats. Come here, and mind you don't jostle the tables. Everyone where they can see Potter's cauldron.'

The bottom dropped out of Harry's stomach. Oh, God. This was going to be humiliating. Gryffindors pressed in at his back, and Slytherins came around to the front, with a little well of space surrounding Snape, who stood still as a statue til everyone was assembled. Then Snape came to life, extending a hand with one pointing finger just shy of touching the edge of the cauldron.

'Observe the quality and care of Mr Potter's potion,' Snape said. 'The consistency which arises from dedicated attention to the smallest details of brewing. Where did you stir, Mr Potter?'

'Where?' Harry swallowed dryly. 'In the... in the centre of the cauldron. In small circles the size of a Galleon.'

'Why?'

'The appendix said to. For,' Harry stuttered, when Snape looked unmoved, 'for potions using... using...'

'Scant,' Snape prompted him almost silently.

'Scant traces of akl-alkaloids.'

'Why?'

'Because it has to be...' Harry felt an uncomfortable trickle of sweat under his arms. 'Be extracted- through- acid-b-base extracted. Extraction.'

If Neville had stuttered like that Snape would have leapt down his throat. But Snape's face was icy cool, his eyes just slightly narrowed. 'Class,' he said, 'Potter has outdone you all. It seems the Boy Who Lived is the only student who minds his homework assignment.'

Hermione shot him a scowl. Ten to one she'd known that when she arrived, not just from reading the appendices after Snape taunted her with them. And there were a few mutters, stifled in the general shuffling of feet and elbows amongst the other students. Draco, whose potion was probably just as perfect as Hermione's, only seemed thoughtful, and he was looking at Snape, not Harry, but every other eye in the place was on him, suffused with jealousy. If there was a greater miracle than a student getting praise from Severus Snape, it hadn't happened at Hogwarts, that was sure.

'Return to your seats,' Snape said, and everyone scattered. 'See you live up to the exemplar in your midst.'

Harry rubbed at his ears. They were so hot they hurt. Snape stood before him a minute longer, and then he leant down again, under the cover of stools scraping the floors, and said very softly, 'See how _useful_ I can be to you, Potter. Remain after class.' He straightened, and turned away with a parting shot. 'Granger, suck in that pouting lip. Being a know-it-all is bad enough; no need to sulk as well.'

Harry attempted to disappear behind his cauldron without the use of his invisibility cloak. The usual noise of the lab was settling, aided by the loud smish-smish of Hermione scraping lindberghy pods against her sieve to release the juices. Harry checked Snape's position relative to his own- safely lengthy, as Snape had retreated to the back of the class to have a word with Tonks. Under cover of his hand, Harry whispered, 'He did that on purpose.'

'I know,' Hermione bit out.

'Well, I didn't. Don't take it out on me.'

Hermione slammed her sieve down. Harry cringed. 'I'm not angry at you, Harry, I'm angry for you.'

That was a rather astonishing thing. 'For me?'

'On your behalf. Ohh, that man.'

'I cannot imagine how any conversation could be necessary for individual assignments,' Snape said, silky smooth, from the back.

They ended the class in relative silence, but for the occasional clang of a stirring rod against the outer edge of the cauldron- 'Stir in the centre, Brown, like Potter,' someone smirked, and a wave of quickly suppressed giggles swept the class- and Harry was in agony by the time the lesson ended. They bottled their potions and queued to drop them in the bin at Snape's desk; Harry lingered at his desk penning his name to the tag, hoping the crowd would thin a bit before he had to join in. But Snape was stalking about again, and Harry scrambled off his stool before the professor could retrace steps to his desk and enquire, no doubt in drippingly solicitous tones, if Harry had completed a perfect potion and didn't want to embarrass his classmates with its glory. Hermione came with him, rolling down the sleeves of her robe and then-

Harry started when her hand curled about his. It was soft, a girl's hand, he'd never known that. His own was slightly damp and he was uncomfortably aware he hadn't washed it since Charms, and it was all over slug slime and lindberghy pulp. Hermione didn't hold it for long, but she didn't look at him, either, and Harry stood frozen in place, unable even to breathe, til she let go, stepped in front of him, and set her potion in the crate next to Pansy Parkinson's. She didn't look at Harry as she walked away, either.

Draco slammed into his shoulder, and Harry stumbled. 'Watch where you're going, Potter,' Draco snapped.

That was all he needed. Harry ignored the titters from the few who'd remained long enough to observe it- Crabbe and Goyle, mostly, who might not even have been minding Draco but laughing at their own game of trying to force-feed each other bits of slug. 'What was that for?' Harry demanded.

'Hey, leave him be,' Neville interjected.

'No-one asked for your input, Longbottom,' Draco sneered. 'Reckon Potter only brought you along with the Knights because he needed a court jester. Or a taster, maybe that's how you got so fat.'

'Draco,' Harry said, and his tone brought everything up short. That had never happened to him before, and it startled Harry as much as it did everyone else, which now unfortunately included Snape, who had noticed the confrontation brewing.

Draco's pale face suffused slowly with pink. His chest heaved a few times with deep breaths, and then, in a very strangled voice, he said, 'Sorry.'

'Oh,' answered Neville, quite startled by this. It was probably the first time anyone had ever apologised to him. 'Oh, I... okay, then,' he stuttered, looking terribly confused.

Harry, however, was not. 'Thank you,' he whispered to Draco, who avoided his eyes. A moment later, Draco had grabbed his bag and fled for the door. Goyle, his slack mouth dripping slug, called after him, and he and Crabbe waddled out.

'Potter,' Snape said then, and fixed him with a look and crooked a long thin finger at him.

'Don't wait for me,' Harry told Ron and Neville, and they, too, left, though not without a few significant glances over their shoulders.

'If he gives Harry points, bet it'll make the _Prophet_ ,' Ron whispered, not quietly enough, and both Harry and Snape wore a sour expression as they faced off.

Snape stood at his desk, rather than sitting in the plain wooden chair that awaited him behind it. Harry approached cautiously. Snape delivered a flick of his wand at the door, which closed with a groan of rusty hinges, and a distinct clack of a latch locking. Harry glanced behind him rather nervously. Tonks was not there.

Snape said, 'I will be tutoring you. You will devote two nights a week to sessions with me, and two hours every Sunday.'

That was exactly the schedule Harry had had for his Defence lessons with Quirrell. Which he hadn't so much officially quit as simply not gone back, since the troll incident. Quirrell had never asked him about it.

'In Potions?' Harry cleared his throat. 'Um, I.'

'Quite,' Snape said. 'In Potions. Amongst other things. I believe you may improve given sufficient oversight.'

Harry dug his pointer nail into a sore spot on his thumb. 'And in return?' he asked carefully.

'And in return,' Snape told him, folding his arms over his chest and tucking his pale hands into his sleeves, 'in return you will tell me everything you know about the Stone, about Quirrell, and about your dreams. And any other topic about which I see fit to question.'

Snape was taking him up on it. Relief hit him in a wave. He hadn't been wrong.

'Good,' he said boldly. 'Then maybe you want to know about the-'

'Potter.' Snape's wand appeared in his hand out of nowhere. He thew an arm out stiffly at the door. Velvet curtains fell loose from their bindings to cover it and then the windows and a tingle went through the air, cold like an icy wind. 'First lesson, intolerably late in your lamentably underinstructed life. Never speak if there is the slightest chance you can be overheard.' He stared at Harry, and Harry stared back. 'Well? What were you going to say?'

Harry blinked at him. 'I don't know what the chances are of being overheard. I don't know what that spell was.'

Snape made his sneeze face, the one where his eyes rolled up a little bit and his mouth pursed hard and white. 'We are safe from all eavesdropping, as I have no wish for you to be heard speaking to me any more than you would wish it.'

'Oh. Well, I guess then it's all right. I was going to say I-' Harry's throat went dry. He swayed.

'Potter?'

'My head- hurts.' It was the headache. Sudden and fierce. Harry rubbed at his forehead. His scar felt hot to the touch. 'Sorry. I was going to say I reckon- I reckon you want to know about-'

He was just suddenly sitting on the floor. Snape was crouching over him, long cold fingers turning Harry's head up to meet his dark eyes. 'Be still,' Snape ordered him, and then Harry was falling, falling the rest of the way, and the cold dungeon floor raced up to meet him.

'Drink this,' someone said, in a deep echoing voice from right above his face. Harry blinked his eyes open and was greeted by a menacing dark blur. Glass pressed to his lips, liquid following swiftly. Harry gagged on the taste of rotten tomatoes and rubber.

'Ugh,' he groaned, when a final cringeing swallow finished it off.

'Yes, it's rather disgusting,' agreed the deep voice. 'Most medicinal potions are. The poisons, however, are delicious. Stay flat, Potter. It works better with increased bloodflow to the head.'

Disgusting as the potion was, it cleared the ringing from his skull, and the pain, too. He felt light as a feather after, and grabbed dizzily at the floor beneath him, afraid he would float away. The blur grumbled something and helped him sit up.

'Professor Snape?' Harry guessed, hazily recalling he'd been in Potions before everything had gone black.

It was Snape, he saw, when Snape hooked Harry's glasses over his nose and came into focus on the other side of the lenses, scowling per usual. 'You had yourself a faint, Potter,' the Potions Master said. 'You were unconscious nearly three minutes. Madame Pomfrey has made mention of your natural delicacy-'

'I'm not delicate!' Harry protested.

'You went down like a Victorian woman in an overlaced corset. These headaches,' Snape said. 'Your mother had headaches as well, but a regimen of potions and careful avoidance of her triggers relieved the symptoms.'

'My mum?' Harry blinked at Snape as he summoned a carafe of water. 'I didn't know that.'

'Quite debilitating. The Muggles diagnosed her with migraines, but in fact it was a reaction to an imbalance of her immature magical gift. The problem largely corrected itself in adolescence.'

'She had a Slytherin friend,' Harry said slowly. 'Her best friend was in Slytherin. It was you?'

Snape stared at him so long that the water pouring from the carafe into a glass overfilled the container and began to spill. Snape cursed when he noticed, and thrust the mess with a slosh under Harry's nose. 'And from which dubious rag did you procure that information? If authored by anyone at the _Prophet_ , it is only notionally acquainted with fact, I assure you.'

'No, L- someone told me. Sir?'

'Drink, Potter.'

Harry sipped. 'But you did know my mum?'

'I did,' Snape said rather distantly, rising and stepping over Harry toward his desk. Harry brushed the lingering train of Snape's robe off his knees. 'We were in the same year as students, and had some knowledge of each other before Hogwarts.'

Harry parsed that curiously. 'You... knew each other as kids?'

'Yes.' Snape about-faced, robes swirling, his fingers stretched wide to touch the desk to either side as he posed there glaring down at Harry. 'And the price of further information on a subject I expect you might find dear to you will be your unquestioning cooperation in my investigation into the nature of your headaches.'

'My- but-'

'Unquestioning,' Snape repeated slowly and loudly, as if he thought Harry were too stupid to have understood it the first time. 'Beginning with the following: you touched your scar just before you fainted. And I have noticed it occasionally appears inflamed and seems to pain you. I have attempted to observe a pattern but I haven't enough data.' He waited, not at all patiently, and prompted Harry with a sharp 'Well?'

'Well what?'

'Well what sir,' Snape corrected him immediately, and added, 'Answer my question.'

'You didn't ask one,' Harry retorted indignantly.

Snape made his sneeze face one more time. 'Does pain in your scar usually accompany a headache?'

'I guess,' Harry said. 'Yeah, mostly, I think.'

'Does the pain begin before or after the headache?'

'Um-' Harry considered it, rubbing the shape of the lightning bolt on his forehead. 'Before. I think.'

'Have you yourself noticed a pattern in the genesis of these symptoms?'

'Gene-'

'Is there a pattern to the headaches, Potter, good God.'

'Oh. I get them a lot in Defence. I think I'm allergic to something in the classroom, sometimes it happens the moment I walk in.'

'And is that the only- Potter? Potter.'

'Iss- happ'nin-' Harry clutched at his skull, the floaty feeling gone and the weight of an anchor pulling at him instead. Pain throbbed in a wretched tempo and he genuinely feared his head would explode under the pressure. He moaned senselessly, at least til Snape bent over him, to touch his scar. Harry shrieked as flame enveloped him.

This time he awoke in the infirmary, with Madame Pomfrey's comforting white mediwitch costume and not Snape's dark blur sitting with him on his bed. At least til Harry rolled his head. Snape was there, just off to the left, pacing up and down the floor. Every rap of his heels to the marble floors was like a stab to Harry's temples. When he winced, Pomfrey murmured something to Snape that halted him in his tracks.

'Harry?' she asked him, laying a cool cloth against his forehead. It felt so good against the heat of his burning scar that Harry groaned.

'That tears it,' Pomfrey said then. 'I'm foregoing the owl post. Severus, tell Albus I've gone to fetch Harry's aunt.'

'No,' Harry tried.

'There is a time for false modesty and indepedence, and that time is not when you are bedridden with a mysterious ailment,' Pomfrey informed him sharpish, though her hand at his cheek was gentle. 'I want this solved before it causes you a harm that can't be undone. I need a full medical history for you, your Muggle relatives, and anything they can tell me about your parents.'

'No, Miss, please, you can't!'

'Mr Potter, I can and I will.' Pomfrey softened ever so slightly. 'If you don't want direct contact with them, Harry, I can conduct my interview at their home, but I do need as much information as possible to treat you.'

Harry didn't know what was worst- having to see Aunt Petunia again, or not being there to stop her saying something that would give away Harry's secrets. He picked fretfully at his thumbnail.

'Potter, cease that.' Snape went so far as to snatch at his hand. 'You've damaged yourself. It may seem insignificant to you, Mr Potter, but you have enemies to whom even insignificant details will be useful in accumulation.'

'Severus!' Madam Pomfrey sounded absolutely scandalised. Or maybe just worried. Her hand slipped, re-applying the cloth to Harry's forehead, and covered his eyes completely. Harry pushed her hand away, and she covered his ears instead, which was as effective as a spell in preventing him hearing what she said to Snape. Harry tugged at her wrists, and got them off in time to hear '-rify the boy, honestly, you great ass!'

'Forewarned is how I prefer him, and thus forearmed,' Snape returned. 'If he's terrified, then he's forearmed. This anxiety about his family will only draw his enemies-'

'Like Rita Skeeter?' Harry interrupted.

Snape contemplated him. Harry felt about for his glasses, and Madam Pomfrey finally provided them, so that Harry could get a good view of Snape standing there with narrowed eyes, arms folded, one finger tapping the opposite elbow. 'That may be more astute than it seems,' he murmured consideringly. 'Skeeter's a bottom-feeder, obviously, but her relentless zeal for notoriety leads her to continue the search when others would give up the scent.' He straightened, his arms falling to his sides as he nodded briskly. 'I will accompany you to interview the Dursleys,' he announced.

'Excellent,' agreed Pomfrey.

'That's not excellent!' Harry protested. 'And I won't go there.'

'You were never asked to.'

'You won't find it without me,' Harry said desperately, 'no-one knows where it is.'

The mediwitch and the Potions Master spent a long moment in silent communication the adults did sometimes. 'Albus and Minerva delivered him there that night,' said Snape.

'And neither of them'll tell,' Harry bet. McGonagall wouldn't because she'd promised him and she'd already kept quiet about Aunt Petunia coming to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore- well, that was a shakier bet, but Harry pretended to be sure about it, and his conviction seemed to convince the adults. 'And no-one else knows except,' Harry went on confidently, only to realise even as he said it that he'd just pointed out something he absolutely hadn't meant to let slip.

Snape, of course, heard it too, and pounced immediately. 'Excepting who, Potter?'

Excepting Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, and Lucius Malfoy. And two of those people might be counted his enemies, if Snape's definition applied, and the third was going off on his own to confront the rest all alone.

Harry had never felt so helpless in all his life. It was the most wretched thing possible.

'I want to talk to Draco,' he said, and rolled over, buried his face in his pillow, and refused to say anything else at all.


	17. A Lie Has Speed, But Truth Endurance

_In Which Allies Are Chosen, And Enemies, Too._

Draco weathered Harry's anger with pinched white lips and level eyes settled on Harry's nose. He didn't interrupt, he didn't defend himself, and when Harry finally lost his steam power and just stared back at him, it was a long minute before Draco blinked and seemed to realise Harry had gone quiet.

'Are you done?' Draco drawled.

Harry turned away, his legs tangling in the scratchy quilt. He slumped low, jamming his pillow into the uncomfortable crook of his shoulder and neck. The iron bars of the headboard dug into his skull, though it didn't hurt, exactly, not with all the potions Pomfrey had stuffed him with. He felt wrapped in cotton batting, and even his temper was hard to hold onto. He picked at his sore fingernails.

It was another long minute before the edge of mattress dipped under Draco's weight, somewhere at Harry's feet. 'You know,' Draco said quietly, 'I always thought the Boy-Who-Lived would be- I don't know. A miniature Dumbledore, maybe. Someone everyone loves for something he did a long time ago, regardless of how everything's changed in the meanwhile. Wizarding memories are long, have you noticed that? Families hold grudges for centuries after the people who had the original argument died. I don't even know why the Weasleys were opposed to the Malfoys, but I know it goes back to the 1700s. Not that a lot of people were all that fond of the Potters. I always heard your ancestors were pirates and merchants who swindled their way into power. And the Malfoys. Everyone knows the Malfoys only care about one thing.'

Unwillingly Harry fell into the trap at the end of that sentence. Draco waited him out, and grudgingly Harry gave in. 'What one thing?'

'Family. You know there hasn't been more than one Malfoy heir in any generation for four hundred years? And we've kept the family alive. By whatever means necessary.'

'I don't care about your family just now,' Harry said snidely. 'I care about mine, and how it's all coming to pieces!'

'If you were a Slytherin, it wouldn't have come to this point. You'd have been clever enough not to go about looking like you're carrying a million secrets with you. Secrets are valuable, and you've been acting like a vault full of treasure since you came to Hogwarts.'

'Well, I'm not a Slytherin, am I. I'm a Gryffindor. Gryffindors leave each other alone!'

'Is that why I'm here then?' Draco asked him coolly. 'Because none of your Lions have dared question you? Or are the rest of the Knights of Jupiter just hiding under your invisibility cloak somewhere?'

Draco hadn't said that very loudly, but Harry wouldn't put it past either Professor Snape or Madam Pomfrey to be eavesdropping. He checked, and found them still standing behind the half-closed door of Madam Pomfrey's office, cups of tea in their hands and identical scowls on their faces. Whatever they were talking about, it went on soundlessly. Harry really needed to learn one of those spells for keeping conversations private.

'No collection of misfits and outcasts snooping about?' Draco went on. 'No, there wouldn't be. They're probably all at dinner, stuffing their fat faces and planning silly adventures. But they're not here helping you.'

Harry flung himself back to face Draco at that, his cheeks heating. 'They help lots! Hermione is reading all kinds of books about unicorns and things in the Restricted Section-'

'That's nothing you couldn't do for yourself.'

'Ron got his brother to come rescue Norbert.'

'And I'd bet ten Galleons Charles Weasley gets a commendation or an award, maybe even a promotion out of it,' Draco retorted almost as if he were bored. The look he gave Harry was faintly pitying. 'The Weasel wasn't helping you, Potter, he was helping his family get ahead.'

'Oh, like you're a stranger to that!'

'Why should it be any different when a Gryffindor does it? For someone who wants to change things you're awfully naive about the way things already are.'

It was a struggle to pretend that didn't wound him. Not a struggle he won. He tried staring out the infirmary's windows, instead, but night had fallen and they were only tall panes of black-filled glass, reflecting back the burning lamps and the white blurs of the beds. A different, man-shaped blur, as the reflection of Professor Snape tried to peer out at Harry, waiting not at all patiently for Harry to make a decision.

Draco wasn't exactly patient, either, but there was something quiet in his voice when he spoke again. He said, 'Harry, what's so bad about anyone finding out about the Dursleys? You have to know it's not a very good secret. People knew Lily Potter was Muggleborn and you've always admitted you were raised by Muggles. It doesn't take a big leap to realise who it must have been.'

The shredded skin of his left pointer finger gave with a vicious tug and began to bleed. Harry stuck it between his teeth, copper flooding his tongue. 'But it wasn't them.'

Maybe secrets were valuable. Draco's face lost its cold cast, his brows slanting into a frown over his pointed nose. 'Who,' he not-quite asked.

Harry dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Was it one of the potions making him loose-lipped again? Or just the weight of everything wanting to get out? Draco knew more already than Harry would ever have told him if circumstances hadn't forced it, but there was a difference between almost everything and everything there was to tell. But if Harry tried to hold out, Snape would go looking for the truth, and then it would all come out, and Harry wasn't ready for that. He didn't want that. He wanted to never see the Dursleys again, ever, and if people knew about the Dursleys he wouldn't be able to have that. It would be all over the papers, and the Minister and Dumbledore and Mugwumps and who knew who else would try to make decisions for him and Harry would be powerless to stop it. Not even Lupin could stop that.

Draco touched the back of Harry's hand. With just a fingertip, brushing over his knuckle, and it felt like an electric shock, or almost more like the absence of a shock, maybe. Just a moment of warmth.

Draco said, 'This is why you need a Slytherin knight. Someone who knows how to use your natural advantages.'

'What advantage?' Harry licked blood from his lip. 'What are you going to do?'

'What you'd be doing if you had any sense.' Draco stood, and waited politely for Snape, who was watching them sidelong, to give him a beady black eye of attention. 'Professor,' he said in the pompous tones he always reserved for anything Pureblood, 'I'd like to speak to my father as a matter of urgency.'

The slight muffled buzz at Pomfrey's office vanished as Snape stepped through the door. 'What matter of urgency,' he enquired silkily.

Draco raised his chin high. 'A matter of urgency that a school governor would be sorely disquieted to miss.'

Snape clenched his jaw. He looked at Harry, maybe in hopes Harry would contradict that, or explain it, or protest it; Harry wanted to do all of those, but the words stuck in his throat. He didn't know if this was a good or a bad idea. A helpful idea or a disastrous one. Draco knew enough to betray him, that was certain. But Draco hadn't done that yet, and all Harry really had on his side was hope.

So he nodded, just the once, and Snape scowled. But Pomfrey, behind him, merely agreed in a murmur, and said, 'You may use the Floo to contact Governor Malfoy, of course, young man.'

It didn't take long. Snape spent the quarter hour pacing. Draco was the picture of composure, sitting straight-backed, his hands folded on his knee, at Harry's bedside. If he felt any nerves, going up against his clearly agitated Head of House and the school mediwitch, he didn't show it. Harry did enough of that for the both of them, slowly shredding the hem of the sheet that covered his legs.

When the dim crackle of flame in the hearth suddenly flared high with bright green light, Harry jumped nearly out of his bedding. Draco sprang to his feet with a quick inhale, and darted forward, but Madam Pomfrey got there first, stepping small and neat in her white hospital apron to face off with the man stepping through the Floo.

'Governor,' she said, polite and impassive, and Lucius Malfoy bowed over her hand briefly. His pale eyes flicked to his son, then to the Potions Master who had locked his arms over his chest to punctuate his glaring; and then Mr Malfoy looked at Harry, a long, unsettling stare.

'Good evening, Mr Potter,' Malfoy murmured.

'Hi,' Harry replied, certain there was something suitably posh he was meant to say, and utterly at a loss what it could be. 'Er, good evening. Thanks for- thank you for coming.'

Malfoy inclined his head regally at this. 'It is my duty and my pleasure to attend to any problems which arise within school grounds.' He turned a bland smile on Pomfrey. 'I believe a bit of privacy is in order. Might I impose on you, Madam, for a moment in your office?'

Pomfrey acquiesced with grace. 'For as long as needed. You'll find the wards maintain your privacy, but I should warn you the cabinets are locked to my magical signature and to that of the Headmaster, and may provide a nasty shock if accidentally triggered.'

'We will stay well out of the way of your files, my lady. Mr Potter? Do you need any assistance?'

Harry had already stood. Draco stuck a solicitous hand under his elbow, but that was a show, not a need, and Harry walked forward on his own power. And Draco didn't follow, and Snape watched him pass with a lip curled and hard eyes that Harry avoided, and even Pomfrey looked at him with less warmth, so he avoided her, too. Lucius Malfoy held the door wide for Harry, and closed it firmly behind him.

Malfoy's wand had a silver handle, and it disconnected from the walking stick he carried with a little twist and click. Malfoy waved it gracefully, and the pair of plain, serviceable wooden chairs at Madam Pomfrey's desk bloated, bulged, and darkened, Transfigured into velvet-upholstered wingbacks with deep seats and silver-studded arms. Harry's feet didn't touch the floor once he climbed in, but it shrank a bit to match his size, becoming comfortable by the time Harry was settled in it. Malfoy sat in his with his walking stick balanced between his knees, wand tucked away now, his hands folded over the silver bauble at the end. He had a ring on every other finger, some of them terrible gaudy, some just plain but old-looking, and on the right hand small finger a curious kind of ring that covered the nail, not the first knuckle, in a carved plate of gold. His hands weren't as graceful as Snape's, all long slim fingers with yellow stains from potions, but they were cold and white as a statue's. Harry transferred his stare to his own hands. The finger he'd been gnawing was still bleeding sluggishly. All his nails were ragged to the quick, and sore and red looking. He hid them in the long sleeves of his robe.

Malfoy let the quiet sit between them exactly as Draco had done. That was all right. Harry tried to gather his scattered thoughts. Tried to think how to say them the way they needed to be said.

But in the end, when he opened his mouth, they came tumbling out, numb and hopeless. He said, 'Could you tell me more about life debts?'

Malfoy didn't so much as twitch. 'A life debt is a category of magical bonds which can form between wizards and witches, and, as you will have observed first-hand, Pureblood, Halfblood, and Muggleborn alike. Many bonds are voluntary, such as oaths of loyalty, marriage, apprenticeship. Some are formed of obligation, such as the bond between servant and master-'

'Like house elves?'

Malfoy's slight pause was censorious. But he didn't make Harry apologise for interrupting, and his tone was unchanged. 'Yes, that is one such, a contractual bond. A life debt is similar in construct, but it is not mutual. It is owed from one wizard to another, and can be inherited if not fulfilled within a single lifetime. For the sake of future generations, most wizards attempt to fulfil life debts readily.'

'And... so... if you get- make- have a life debt because you saved someone's life, then they have to save yours to be even?'

'The repayment must be equivalent, yes.'

'Oh.' Harry dug his fingers into his knees.

'You are distressed, Mr Potter. Something I said disappointed you?' Malfoy's thumb tapped once on the handle of his cane. 'Perhaps you wished to waive the life debt I owe you on behalf of my son, in exchange for silence on the subject of your Muggle relatives and their custody of you.'

Harry's throat was horrid dry. 'Yes, sir.'

Malfoy studied him with a detached kind of interest, mild and not unexpected. 'You either hold my son's life in low value, Mr Potter, or you conflate your own with your comfort. Both are dangerous misconceptions.'

Harry glanced up. 'No, sir.'

'No?' Malfoy arched a brow. 'No to which? Or does it matter? Functionally, Mr Potter, you have admitted to underestimating something which may, in fact, be crucial. You have enemies enough without self-wrought dangers.'

Snape had said something similar. Harry swallowed. 'Yes, sir.'

'As it happens,' Malfoy murmured, 'I have already fulfilled that life debt, and at a price I believe you will consider timely and useful.'

'You... you have?'

'I have.' Malfoy lifted one hand to his cape, sliding the small pearl button through its loop and reaching into the front placket of his silk robe. He removed a square of fine white paper, folded and sealed with silver wax, and a fat packet of parchment sheets tied with a ribbon. He extended these to Harry, who took them cautiously. 'That,' Malfoy said, 'is a signed affadavit from one Rita Melonia Skeeter, erstwhile columnist and occasionally successful author, currently employed by _The Daily Prophet_ , an institution with which I have had my own encounters. Those encounters led me to certain enquiries about staff members, which yielded information most curious and intriguing. On the occasion of your heroic act which saved the life of my son and heir, I put some of that information to use. Rita Skeeter has a keen interest in you, Mr Potter, and sufficient motivation to ignore minor trifles such as breaking the law in her pursuit of a story. As you will note from her affadavit, Ms Skeeter obtained the location of your relatives through dubious means, and intended to publish that information in that rather lurid manuscript.'

Manuscript. The sheets of parchment were a book draft, or something like that, written in large loopy penmanship, page after page of it. It even had a title. _Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy: The Chilling True Story of Murder and Betrayal._

'Rubbish,' Malfoy remarked calmly. 'Unsurprisingly. And a good third is nothing but articles she's already published. But it would sell.'

Harry's heartbeat was thundering so hard he felt faint. His hands shook, trying to page through the book. Shook so hard he lost his grip, and had to catch it before it slid off his knees. Photographs spilled out, scattering on the floor. Harry slipped off his chair to gather them up, but could only kneel there, staring at them. They were all photographs from the album Lupin had given him. She'd made copies of all of them.

Malfoy joined him on the tile, the tip of one polished shoe pinning a picture of a waving James Potter to the ground. He picked up each photograph one by one, aligning them all in a neat pile where Harry just grabbed them recklessly. Harry tried not to yank them out of Malfoy's hands, but retreated quickly once he had them, clutching them to his chest in an awkward armful with the manuscript. Malfoy eased back into his seat, and for a moment it seemed he would speak; but then he closed his mouth, looking thoughtful, and didn't say a word.

'You know about Crowhill,' Harry whispered.

Malfoy nodded once.

'What are you going to do about it?'

'What would you like me to do about it?'

Harry had no immediate answer for that. Only that he didn't want to be sitting here, having this conversation.

Maybe Malfoy took pity on him, or just judged he wasn't going to get an answer. 'I have already done something about it, Mr Potter. Do you know what an affadavit is? It is a sworn statement of fact. This particular affadavit is Ms Skeeter's admission of her unique, and illicit, animagus ability, which she has used with admirable ruthlessness to pursue leads for her so-called investigations.'

Animagus. Harry had heard that word before. 'She... she can make herself an animal?'

'A beetle. It is theorised that a wizard's animagus form reflects some notable aspect of their personality; the evidence in this case certainly seems to bear that theory out. In any case, it's been particularly useful for Ms Skeeter. I would hazard that her reputation for unearthing secrets is owed entirely to her ability to unobtrusively observe otherwise private activities, which can then be leveraged to extract further information from her victims. She has a taste for fame, thankfully, instead of power, or many a member of the Wizengamot might find themselves in uncomfortably warm waters.'

Harry shook his head against a swell of dizziness. The words didn't penetrate past that momentary haze. 'So she-'

'Has been haunting the school in beetle form for months, and likely attached herself to you as early as your arrival at King's Cross Station. She had the negatives for many of the photographs which appeared in the Prophet depicting you in class or in the halls. As you have discovered, she violated your dormitory to go through your belongings. She had copies of your letters exchanged with a teacher at your school, and attempts at an investigation into Mr Lupin's history, evidently less successful. He figures prominently in that manuscript as a figure of mystery and ambiguous influence, fitting for a man of his condition. But the bulk of her investigation of you, Mr Potter, was focussed on the discovery that you were not, in fact, raised by your mother's sister, and that this fact appears to have gone entirely undiscovered by all relevant authorities.' Malfoy settled back in his chair with the walking stick held loosely, confidently between two fingers, now, tapping its silver tip lightly on the tile. 'So long as I hold that affadavit, however, that discovery will remain between we three, and your professor; and of course your Aunt and Uncle. Who were, I trust, cooperative during their visit with the Headmaster.'

It fell into place. Malfoy had all but said the words, and Harry erased even that uncertainty, wanting, needing to hear it. 'You're blackmailing them to keep quiet.'

'Yes,' Malfoy replied.

'Good,' Harry said, and Malfoy smiled just a very little bit, a hard, approving smile. That smile, oddly enough, stayed in place, even when Harry added, steeling himself, 'And are you going to blackmail me?'

'No, Mr Potter. The obligation of the life debt forbids it.'

Harry traced the seal in the silver wax on the affadavit. The crest was a shield with a flourishing 'M' and lots of dragons and snakes twining around it. It was only wax, but it tingled a little bit against his fingertips in a way that meant magic. With a deep breath, Harry handed it back. Malfoy inclined his head, and returned it to the inner pocket of his robe. He didn't ask for the book or the photographs, and Harry didn't offer them.

'You didn't ask me here to discuss something you could have no idea was happening,' Malfoy said then. 'Perhaps you might broach the topic troubling you.'

'I can't,' Harry mumbled.

'May I ask why?'

'You already paid the life debt.'

Malfoy filled in the rest for himself. 'And you don't wish to owe me any favours in return. You are a curious creature, Mr Potter. Unusually wise for a boy your age, and a Gryffindor. And a Potter.'

'You know the truth. There's no reason for me to be like them.'

'I would like to believe that if my son endured a tragedy like yours and was raised away from all comfort of family surroundings, he would still carry part of me in his blood. Though you rightly guess I shared little sympathy of perspective with your father, this is something every man shares.'

'But you're not my dad,' Harry pointed out bluntly. 'You don't owe me anything now.'

Pale eyes held his. There was no feeling of falling, like he'd had that time with Dumbledore, when Dumbledore had seen the cupboard in Harry's memories. But somehow Harry thought it wasn't very wise to meet those eyes for long.

'A bargain,' Malfoy proposed, when Harry had dropped his eyes back to the photographs and the book in his lap. 'Something which brings mutual profit. Would that satisfy?'

'I don't have anything to give you.'

'If we spoke of money or magical artefacts that would be true. But you have other advantages.'

There was that word again. Whether Draco would be like his father if they hadn't had each other all Draco's life, Harry didn't know; but they had, and the similarity was suddenly worrisome.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey wasn't happy about it, that was clear, but she bowed her head and accepted it. Snape gave a little shrug, as if it was all too silly anyway and he'd tired of it.

'Excellent,' Malfoy concluded smoothly. 'You are both to be commended for your care and concern, but I think we all agree that the privacy and safety of our students are hardly at odds. Mr Potter will be a model patient and I have every faith your treatment will be adequate to his needs. Draco.' Malfoy put out a hand, and Draco went to his side, stopping short of actually touching his father. Mr Malfoy didn't touch him, either, only brushing his fingers through the air under Draco's chin, and nodding at some silent understanding that passed between them. 'I look forward to seeing you both at the Gryffindor-Slytherin match,' he said gravely, including Harry at that with a flick of a glance. 'Be obedient and grateful, my son.'

'Yes, Father.'

The flare of the Floo powder flung on the flames lit the hospital wing in green. Malfoy stepped through, and with his departure the silence fell thick and smothering.

Pomfrey broke it with a sigh. She said, 'If your head is better, Mr Potter, I can release you to sleep in your dormitory tonight. Fetch me at the first sign of anything wrong.'

Harry managed a miserable nod. She wasn't looking him in the eye. She'd been nice to him, and he'd got her in trouble with her job for it. He didn't like himself for it, and couldn't blame her not liking him any more either.

Snape didn't watch her go and didn't make for the door, so Harry hovered between his professor and the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 'Sir,' he said finally.

Snape already had his arms folded across his chest and a scowl on his face. He drew himself up an extra inch, but if anything he looked cold, and remote. He looked at Harry like Harry was just a bug, a little gross but not very important.

Harry swallowed. 'I had to,' he said.

Snape spoke consideringly. 'I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, Potter.'

Harry was fairly sure that was meant literally, but this wasn't the same Snape who'd been trying to figure him out like a puzzle down in the Potions lab. This wasn't even the Snape who'd been so angry with him the first Potions class. This Snape was writing him off so visibly it was almost inked on the air.

'Do you still... do you still want me to come for extra lessons,' Harry asked. 'And to talk about the... the other thing we talked about.'

'If your time consulting the school governors is not too extensively scheduled.'

That was maybe a yes. Harry nodded. 'Um, and. And the other, other thing.'

'I recall no "other other" thing.'

'You telling me things about my mum.'

Draco was watching, not even pretending not to watch. Pomfrey had gone as far as the door to her office, but she was still standing there, listening without expression.

Snape abruptly unfolded his arms and stepped in. 'No,' he said, quite decisively.

Harry's head gave a faint throb. His throat, too. 'I didn't mean-'

'You broke your word, Potter. Why should I keep my end?'

'I couldn't. I had to.'

'Then I cannot.'

'I only want to know-'

'You have not known for ten years,' Snape said with callous indifference. 'To continue not knowing changes nothing.'

The rustle of the book against his chest made Harry aware of how tightly he was hugging the mess of parchment to his chest. 'Okay,' he said, airless, and Snape didn't react at all, though Pomfrey stirred uneasily. 'Then, I'll. I'll see you for lessons, sir.'

'Come on, Harry,' Draco said, and put a hand on Harry's shoulders. 'I'll walk you back.'

It was cooler in the corridors, cold on the sweat that pebbled Harry's forehead. He wiped it on his sleeve. Draco came along at his side, leading him, really, since Harry had no idea where he was going and couldn't find the focus to think about it. His thoughts were leaping like frogs all over in his head. He didn't know what he'd just done in there. He didn't know why. But it was done and he didn't think it could be undone, either. It was just one foot in front of the other, til suddenly they weren't walking at all, but standing in front of the Great Hall. Dinner had just ended. House elves were at work in the Hall, clearing the tables and cleaning for breakfast in the morning.

Draco turned to face him, but looked past him, at the ceiling over the long House tables. It was a cloudy sky, rippled with a little lightning here and there, and a nearly full moon, its ghostly yellow aura bleeding through the mist.

Draco said, 'I know you're brave, but you can do hard things, too. That means more. At least in my book.'

'I'd druther stick with brave.'

'Don't know why. The last brave thing you did ended with a troll.' Draco brushed hair from Harry's forehead, and touched his scar. 'It's red. You've been rubbing it?'

'It was hurting earlier,' Harry replied evasively. Then, deciding it didn't make anything worse than it already was, he opted for reckless honesty. 'That's what happened after Potions. Snape was having me talk about Quir-'

Draco held him up when he swayed. 'Harry!'

'Testing,' Harry told him weakly. 'That happened in the lab. Only I fainted. And when it happened again Snape made me go to the infirmary, that's how it all started. Why can't I talk about it?'

'Talk about what?' Draco grabbed him when Harry opened his mouth to answer. 'Don't, you dolt! I was teasing.'

'I know,' Harry forgave him, knocking him on the arm. 'But even if Snape and Madam Pomfrey aren't going to try and find my relatives, I still can't tell them about the headaches.'

'I can tell them for you. I'm not blind, I've noticed- your head always hurts after-'

'B-boys,' said a timid voice behind them, and they turned to see Professor Quirrell emerging from the Great Hall. 'On y-your way to ex-ext-ra-curri-ri-' Quirrell stopped himself for a breath. 'Clubs?' he finished with a strained smile.

'Yes, Professor,' Draco answered glibly. 'Though Harry's hopeless at Exploding Snap.'

'Don't g-give up,' Quirrell advised him. 'Good for the dex-dex-terity. I've b-been dis-cuss-sing resurr- resurr-recting the duelling club with H-headmaster Dumbled-dore. F-flex those sp-spell casting m-muscles.'

The light in Draco's eyes was real interest. 'I studied duelling at home, Professor,' he said proudly, before he recalled to whom he was boasting, and frowned at Harry as if it were Harry's fault.

Quirrell preened at this. 'Capital, capital. Too many Pureblood families neglect the-' He paused. 'The f-finer arts of honour and ant-ant- antiquit-t-ty.' His smile was quick and jumpy. 'Your f-father is t-to b-be comm-mend-ded, M-Mr Malfoy. I d-don't suppose, Potter, you studied any M-m-muggle defencive tactics?'

'Lots, sir,' Harry said, not entirely untruthful. Running and hiding from bullies meant being fast, light on your feet, and capable of squeezing into small spaces. Harry was very good at it.

'Two r-recruits, r-ready and w-waiting,' Quirrell said. 'All right, Potter? You look a bit p-p-peaky.'

'I'm all right.' But he wasn't. His head hurt. Draco caught him in a sidelong glance, and began to chew his lip.

Quirrell caught the look, too, though, and for a moment it all hung there- all three of them knowing the other ones knew, and all three of them knowing exactly what the others were thinking.

Quirrell's lips parted. Then firmed. His hunched shoulders relaxed, and it seemed he stood a little taller, then, and the abashed blush fell out of his face, leaving something colder behind.

Run, Harry thought, a wild thought that flared up in him like the Floo bursting into flame, but there wasn't time. Quirrell's wand was suddenly in his hand, and just as suddenly it was aimed at Draco's head, and then Draco was falling, the thump of his body hitting the stone only a little louder than Quirrell's whispered spell. Harry was caught between darting away and going for Draco, and that indecision cost him. The second time, though, he heard the spell loud and clear.

' _Obliviate,_ ' Quirrell said, and then-

Harry rubbed his eyes under his lenses, then took his glasses off and dropped them to his duvet. The words on the page had gone swimmy.

'All right, Harry?' Neville asked idly, looking up from his desk. He held Harry's wand, practising his Charms assignment. The swish and swirl went on repeat as he gazed quizzically at Harry.

'Headache,' Harry grumbled, and flopped back to his pillows. 'This book is wretched.'

'What you reading, then?' Neville left homework behind and came to Harry's bedside. 'Who wrote that? It's not a real book.'

'Rita Skeeter,' Harry said, shoving the pages away. Loose from their ribbon, they scattered a bit, but Neville was able to pull them back into order, and held Harry's place with a finger as he flipped to the first page.

'Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy,' Neville read. 'Prophecy?'

'Dunno,' Harry said, picking at a loose thread in his pyjamas. 'She keeps dropping hints about it, but I think she's holding onto it for the sequel.'

'It's a real prophecy, then?'

'Raised by Muggles,' Harry said.

Neville grinned at him at the reminder. 'It's a kind of divination, I think. Reckon we'll find out next year when we have class. There's seers and readers and Unspeakables and all sorts who deal with that stuff. If there's a real prophecy though, I bet Rita Skeeter doesn't know anything about it. The Ministry usually keeps that stuff dead quiet. It's probably locked up in the Department of Mysteries.'

'Where?'

'You know? The big vault at the Ministry where they put all the dangerous or unknown magical thingummies? Er, sorry, I know you don't know. Well, that's where they put the stuff I just said.'

'But why prophecies? Wouldn't that be the kind of stuff you'd want lots of people to know about?'

Neville could only shrug. He returned Skeeter's manuscript, and Harry's wand. 'It's Friday and I don't want to think about school til Sunday,' he announced, and settled into bed with a candle and a Sherman Flitterwiggle Mystery.

Harry rubbed his head. He really did have an awful headache. Madam Pomfrey would probably want him to come into the infirmary for it, but he was too tired to think about traipsing all the way across school, and anyway it was near curfew. Maybe he could sleep it off. He climbed to the foot of his bed and leant over to open his trunk, where it nestled below him on the ground. He tucked the pages under a couple of slightly crumpled essays he'd been returned with particularly good marks, and lay there a moment stroking the soft satiny hem of his invisibility cloak. It was a Friday... lots of the older years stayed out later on Fridays, with their curfews considerably extended beyond the hour afforded firsties, so they could socialise and meet for study groups and things. No-one would notice much if there was one other person out in the halls- particularly if he was invisible. Harry missed the freedom he'd had for wandering over Christmas, when hardly anyone had been about and he could just be himself, unobserved, alone. It had felt like the whole of Hogwarts and all its secrets had been his, and he never had finished exploring that third-floor corridor...

Decision made, Harry dropped off his bed and into his trainers, yanking them on over his socks. 'Left something in the common room,' he said, bundling his cloak and wand beneath his arm out of Neville's eyeline. Neville only 'hmm'ed, absorbed in his book, and Harry was grinning widely as he made his escape. As soon as he was out the door, he whipped the cloak about his shoulders, drew up the hood, and headed for the stairs.


	18. The Grim

_In Which A Prediction Meets Its Moment._

 _Looking back, many say, it all began with the Grim._

 _1971 is not a terribly remarkable year in history. For the Muggles, it was marked by violence and disaster, but even that is not terribly remarkable for them; the Troubles in Ireland, accompanied by bombings, riots, and massacres, continued unabated as the Muggle Prime Minister struggled with what is now understood to be one of the earlier campaigns of Muggle-baiting by You-Know-Who's followers. Protests in London forced the closure of Diagon Alley for a week for the recalibration of Muggle-Repelling charms, sending the British Wizarding Economy into a stagger that a lacklustre Christmas season could not alleviate. Storms riddled the British Isles- unnaturally fierce winds, calamitous flooding, wildfires in Cornwall and South Wales, and, most wretched of all, the disastrous Cairngorm Plateau Disaster, a rare case of cooperation between Muggle and Magical authorities which nonetheless failed to locate and evacuate a party of schoolchildren lost in a blizzard in the Scottish mountain range. It is now known, of course, that You-Know-Who's experiments in weather magic were the direct cause of that blizzard which blanketed so much of the north in deadly white, and the ghastly casualties were merely the first in a long war._

 _But for the Hogwarts Class of 1971, it was a year of excitement, adventure, and exhiliaration. As the Hogwarts Express boarded for the autumn term, children jockeyed for seats with those who would become their classmates, their best friends, their husbands and wives- their enemies. James Potter was one such. The only child of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, James was well-loved, rambunctious, confident, and already well-steeped in the traditions of an Ancient and Noble Light Family._

 _'He was a bit of a prat,' recalled Dorothea Whittlesbee, herself a fourth year in 1971, and a neighbour of the Potters' from Godric's Hollow. 'Very high on his own petard. He wasn't spoilt as such- in fact I recall one summer Euphemia had Fleamont switch him for some broken rule or another right on the lawn in front of anyone who cared to walk by, and James wailing up a scene the entire time. Big believers in discipline, that generation. I could tell you stories about my gran. But all that money and the big estate? The parties were infamous. I'd get the invite every year, all the children did, the Christmas party in the orangery. Oh, the tree- they always had the most marvellous tree, it would just tower over you, every branch stuffed with ornaments. And James would play host for all of us and hand out little marzipan delights. If you got the cake with the knut in it you'd get a present. Lovely.'_

 _As the sole heir to the Potter fortune, James was a commodity even at eleven, and had already been linked to two young ladies with tentative betrothals. The first, Valeria Edgecombe, died tragically at the age of three in a Floo accident, tripping into a live connection and becoming lost in the pathways, her poor body never recovered. At the time of James's enrollment in Hogwarts, the Potters and the Tybont-Joneses of Beddgelert in North Wales had an agreement of several years that would handfast their children when James reached his majority of fifteen, which would have made him twenty-seven years the elder in his marriage, as the Tybont-Joneses did not birth a girl until 1987, six years after James himself had fallen at You-Know-Who's hand. These machinations not yet bearing fruit, James was effectively unattached, and, in the eyes of many a Wizarding family, fair game._

 _'Girls were all over him,' said Johann van den Rügen, a Belgian student of Durmstrang who attended an exchange year in 1974 and fell in with Potter's circle of friends. 'Tall for his age, and athletic, and clever without being a swot. Between that and the money he never lacked for attention. He'd get love letters all the time, slipped into his books or under his plate at meals. Gave him a proper swelled head. He spent more time behind the Greenhouses in fourth year than Professor Willyweed, and a different girl every week.'_

 _'Potter seemed all right at first,' Colson Thurphat added grudgingly. 'But he had it out for anyone who wasn't fully proclaimed Light going back generations, and even some who were. The Thurphats may be Slytherin and Ravenclaw, but what's your school House got to do with your pedigree? Bollocks, that's what. Not so far as Potter was concerned. Had himself a queue out the door of his carriage on the train from the very first hour, interviewing everyone where they thought they'd be placed. Wrong answer- you were out the door. Right answer- you were in. And if Potter thought you were in, you had it made. Even the older years followed his lead.'_

 _'Oh, it's not as though he'd brand you on the forehead.' Cicilia Dufretta Seaber dismissed that notion with an airy wave of her lovely hand. 'He just had his little club. Every Firstie wants somewhere to belong and Potter was keen on making capital. That was Euphemia all over. James grew up in Society and knew those sorts of alliances matter. And he could be very kind when he wanted. Attached himself to Remus Lupin right away, didn't he, and Lupin a half-blood and sickly besides. And Lupin brought Sirius Black to him, and that was that, wasn't it?'_

 _The question of Remus Lupin and the question of Sirius Black have been linked since that fateful day on the Hogwarts Express. While many recall the close friendship of Black and Potter, few remember that Potter was not initially inclined to embrace the heir of an Ancient and Noble House long dedicated to the Dark. 'James would have been warned off the Blacks since birth,' agreed Pharo Poppington the Ninth, who was the Hufflepuff prefect in James's first year. 'Probably in the womb.' Indeed, the Blacks were a troubled line in its final death-throes, plagued with poor health and increasing mental infirmity. Walburga Black had three miscarriages before carrying her first child to term- Sirius Orion Black- and one might have expected her to treasure that child, as the Potters had with James. But 'Walburga was a right hard hand,' reported one London neighbour who wished to remain anonymous, as his connexions to the Blacks would immediately identify him as being of long-standing acquaintance and even an intimate in relations and certain shady business dealings. 'She couldn't bend the boy to her will so she intended to break him over her knee. Poor little tyke toddled off the Express that day with a bruise shaped like her palm right there on his cheek. Getting away to Hogwarts was probably the first good night's sleep he ever had. She wasn't all there, you know what I mean? And I suppose neither was Sirius, because he just couldn't help setting her off. If you want my opinion, I think he rather enjoyed seeing her reduced to that. Raving and spitting and screaming til her house elf drugged her with laudanum just to shut her up. He'd call her mad to her face, an inbred lunatic with delusions of grandeur, and she'd beat him to an inch of his life. Sad, sad days.'_

 _By contrast, Remus Lupin, then a second year student, could hardly have expected to orbit in the same circles with either a Black or a Potter. The half-blood son of Lyall Lupin and his Muggle wife Ffion, Remus was by all accounts a quiet child, little seen in public after Lyall Lupin resigned his seat in the Wizengamot. Close friends of the family concede that rising anti-Muggle sentiment may have played a part in ending Lupin's political career- 'His marriage made him an outcast from all good society,' said former Wizengamot colleague Midge, of the Marches' branch of the House of Mortimer. 'Ffion was a pretty young thing, but I always thought it was suspicious how quickly she got pregnant. Lyall thought the honourable thing to do was marry her, but I was on duty when he received the Howler from his mother disinherting him. Ohh, the things she said. Never took him back, so far as I know. And Lyall, he stood by that Muggle wife of his, and his son by her too, and never remarried after she died. Welsh, you know. They never do admit when they're wrong.'_

 _The story of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black merits its own chapter, but too much of it remains shrouded in mystery. How did a penniless half-blood tame the tempestuous scion of a troubled but Ancient and Noble line?_

 _~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from_ Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy

* * *

Professor Lupin looked pale, excepting the bruise-like shadows under his eyes. He waited with his wand drawn, tapping slowly against his thigh as if he were listening to music in his head. Or counting the passage of time. The bright moon cast his shadow on the ragged vegetable patch like a sundial's gnomon, creeping slowly leftward as night fell.

Harry's squat was beginning to cause him some discomfort. He was afraid if he shifted Lupin would hear him, however, so he endured as long as he could, gnawing his lip and wondering. Would Black come? Would Black come blasting in with spells and curses? Would Lupin strike first? They wouldn't die, would they?

When the moment came, Harry almost missed it, so wrapped up in his own thoughts. There. A shaggy black dog, emerging from the shadows of the Forest. It loped uphill toward Hagrid's garden, skirting wide through the pumpkin patch and slinking low on its belly past the scarecrow, which stirred only a little on its crosspole before settling, evidently convinced the intruder was only the wind. The dog slowed, then, its snout rising as it sniffed the air. Its head turned unerringly toward Lupin.

And in response, Lupin lifted his wand, and spoke a single word, and the garden flared hot and orange and deadly.

The dog's howl of agony shattered the night, but though it rang in echoes in Harry's ears, it was brief. The dog fell heavily, writhing in the dirt. That, too, was brief. It seemed to blur, then stretch, and in only a moment a man lay where the dog had been, gasping as he shredded the grass with his hands.

Lupin could have struck again. Harry thought he would, and surged to his feet, but it didn't _look_ like an attack. A great silver cloud flowed from Lupin's wand, forming a ghost-like creature. A dog? A dog like Sirius had been in his Animagus form, but this dog had a heavily muscled chest and long claws that scratched at the earth as if it would dig furrows if it were real, and its jaws lifted in a silent growl, bright pale fangs glowing.

'Minerva,' Lupin said, 'inform the Order. Sirius Black is here.'

The ghost-dog bobbed its head in a strangely human nod, and then it bounded away. It brushed right past Harry, where he watched from the standing stones. Harry shivered- he thought the ghost-dog was cold, but maybe it was just the wind.

'Remus,' Sirius rasped. He had made it to his hands and knees. He tried to go farther, and sank back, trembling. 'Don't do this.'

'Don't beg,' Lupin answered coldly. 'We're far beyond that, and it's beneath you.'

'I didn't do it. I didn't do it, Remus, I didn't betray them-'

'Yes, I've heard your story. It was Peter. Convenient. He has no means of defending himself, being dead.'

'He's not dead.' Sirius lurched to his feet, staggering drunkenly. 'Don't know- where- but not dead.'

'Stop. I don't want to hear it.'

Sirius lunged, accidentally or maybe purposefully, but Lupin moved back swiftly, maintaining the distance between them and levelling his wand. Black swayed, staring at him, and began to laugh. It was a ragged sound, sawing at the icy air.

'Can you hold out til they come, Moony?'

'Test me, if you care to find out.'

'I know I can't beat you in a duel. Usually.' Sirius threw his arms wide, to show himself wandless. 'You still taking your potion? You'll have had four doses of that poison this month. I remember what it does to you, you know. Vomitting, the headaches. Joints swollen up and your bones brittle. Double vision- is that why you haven't tried to take a chunk out of me yet? The shaking. You shouldn't even be on your feet. What else did you take?'

'Does it matter? I'll last.'

There was silence, then, as they sized each other up. Harry glanced up at the castle. Maybe the ghost-dog hadn't found anyone to tell its message to?

'I missed you.'

'Don't,' said Lupin.

'I did. I wrote to you. I wrote to you as often as they gave me parchment and quill. Did they actually send my letters? I always wondered that. But then you didn't stay in the Wizarding World, did you? You were with Harry.'

'Leave Harry alone. It's desperate and unjust of you to make him judge and jury.'

Sirius flared at that, mouth twisting, hands clenching, suppressing a shout with all his might. 'Well, somebody bloody should be! Or have you overlooked the fact I never had a trial?'

'You confessed.'

'I _felt_ guilt. I should have seen what was happening, I should have seen through Peter's lies. The things he said- I was weak, I wished- you remember what it was like, you remember how we all suspected each other, suspected ourselves. Damn it, Moony, you were gone so long-'

'Don't you dare blame me.' Lupin said it so viciously Harry stared in shock, and stared too at Lupin's hand, shaking so hard the wand bobbed and danced, sparks dripping sluggishly from the tip and causing tiny flames wherever they hit the dry winter grass at his feet. 'Have you any idea what I went through because of you? Why didn't I know what you were, what you'd done, how could I have missed it? Why wouldn't I pen an article for the _Prophet_ condemning you, why wouldn't I testify against you, why wouldn't I burn everything you'd ever touched in a bonfire in Diagon Alley for all to see- it never ended! Do you know they printed my picture everywhere, they hounded me if I dared to show my face in public, and that's to say nothing of Howlers at work and every hacked-off yob with an owl tracking me down at the house. They attacked my father, did you know that, broke his windows and frightening him in the middle of the night! It didn't matter what I did, it was never enough of an answer for your crimes. Four times I went before the Wizengamot under Veritaserum, did you know that- and that before they realised I might know what Dumbledore had done with Harry, and then it only began all over again. Don't you dare blame me. Don't you dare blame me, Padfoot, it was everything I could do to survive you!'

The rage had leaked out of Sirius, and all the backbone besides, and he seemed to shrivel the longer Lupin ranted at him. His shoulders hunched up about his ears, and he cradled his arms at the elbows, head drooping in shame. And Lupin was no longer raging, not really- the moonlight gleamed on the tears streaking his hollow face, and his breath came in gulps, his thin chest heaving. Lupin gave a big flinch, all over, when Sirius darted at him suddenly, but he didn't stop it, and Sirius was grabbing him close, embracing him with both long arms and wrapping him tight. They stood there like that, close enough to breathe the same air, neither moving at all as the seconds accumulated.

Harry released a breath that trembled. And happened to glance over his shoulder, not even expecting to see anything, but habit from the last two hours of tense anticipation. He started badly when he realised they were no longer alone. The Order of the Phoenix was coming, and they were coming in hard and fast.

Harry didn't think. He grabbed up a bit of slate gravel and hurled it. Only one of the pebbles travelled far enough to hit Lupin in the back, but the sound of them tumbling to a landing amid the garden snapped the two men apart.

Lupin's head tilted back, to the moon rising high and white overhead. His shuddering groan was thick with indecision.

'Moony,' Sirius whispered.

'Go,' Lupin told him, and turned away to slump to the ground, covering his face with his hands.

Bill Weasley went hurtling past Harry, a curse leaving his wand with a snapped gesture. Sirius was gone before it could find a target, vanishing into the night, and Bill's dead run carried him past Lupin, careening toward the Forest where Sirius had fled. Tonks was only just behind him, but she slowed to Lupin's side, bending over him with rapid questions. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Elphias Doge went thundering past, with ghost animals of their own flowing by, streaking off into the Forbidden Forest until their eerie silver glow was swallowed up by the shadows.

'Remus?' Shacklebolt enquired, crouching at his side. 'Merlin's wrinkled nub, man, you look a fright-'

'The moon,' Tonks said tersely. 'Remus, how much longer?'

'What do you mean, the moon?'

'Not long,' Lupin gasped. 'I- need to- the Willow, get me to- Willow-'

They all but carried him between them, dragging him as his steps faltered. Harry stood hesitating at the standing stones, sure that if he revealed himself now he'd catch record trouble. He didn't know if the Order of the Phoenix could take points, but they could certainly deliver him to someone who would. But he was terribly torn- Professor Lupin looked desperately ill, but if he followed Lupin he wouldn't get to see him anyway, because of curfew, and if he followed Lupin he wouldn't know if they caught Sirius.

Lupin went sprawling, toppling to the ground like a felled tree. 'Conjure a stretcher,' Tonks instructed Shacklebolt, holding Lupin as he lay twitching and seizing. She made a knot in the pink bandanna she wore in her hair and tried to shove it between Lupin's jaws- 'You'll bite your tongue off, careful- come on, love, you need to stay with us long as you can-' She broke off in horror as Lupin coughed and jack-knifed, spewing a mouthful of pale yellow bile. The second retch was bright red blood.

'What did Black do to him?' Shacklebolt gaped.

'Remus- Christ, Remus, shh, it's all right, love, lay back-'

'Blood- on you- bad,' Lupin gagged, trying fruitlessly to brush it off her where it had splashed her hands. 'Bad blood. Get- Pomfrey or- Snape-'

'I'll go,' Shacklebolt said, standing, but Tonks grabbed him by the wrist, her face white and set.

'You can't,' she told him. 'It'll take everything we have to keep him down once he's done.'

Just as when he'd faced off against the troll, Harry found the decision made itself. Lupin needed help, and the grown wizards couldn't do it. Harry pulled back the hood of his invisibility cloak, and let it slide from his shoulders. 'I'll go,' he said, and they both whipped about to stare uphill at him. 'I'll go,' Harry said again, and didn't wait for them to yell at him or call him back. He ran as hard as he could for the castle.

* * *

No-one took points, but Harry was most definitely in trouble.

Percy woke Harry a half-hour before the breakfast bell. Groggy and sandy-eyed, Harry fumbled for his glasses and shower caddy and let Percy nudge him along to the showers. It wasn't til the first spray of hot water caught him in the face that he recalled the events of the night before, and then he raced through his wash- only to be pushed back under the spigot with instructions to scrub behind his ears and between his toes. 'They'll wait on you,' Percy said. 'I asked to be sure. And you're to eat first.'

Harry wasn't the least bit hungry. 'Did... you... hear anything... at all strange last night?' he asked carefully, wiggling his toes in the suds on the tile and wondering if Percy would actually check. Best not risk it.

'Why?' Percy asked sharpish. 'What did you do? I know it wasn't the twins, they were in detention all night, and Quidditch practise was over before dinner, not that Oliver stopped talking about it til midnight-'

'I didn't do anything,' Harry protested. It wasn't quite a lie- he hadn't done anything wrong, exactly, because he'd been two minutes ahead of curfew when he'd found McGonagall about to call the castle ghosts in search of him and told her about Lupin and the Order. She'd banished him to his dormitory on pain of a very strict sentence, and Harry had known better than to test her. When adults didn't have an immediate threat, it meant they'd take the time to think about it later and come up with something ridiculously awful to really teach you a lesson. It had meant a night of nail-biting and worry for Harry, plagued with strange dreams.

He wasn't thinking of his dreams now, though, he was thinking of Lupin. When he emerged, hastily towelling off, from the shower, Percy didn't send him back a third time, but let him dress in a hurry and didn't even make him comb his hair, though it dripped distractingly down the back of his neck and flopped in his eyes. 'Food first,' Percy said, but then checked out the door and pointed Harry to the desk, not the door. Harry found a plate waiting beneath a napkin, and flashed Percy a brilliant smile of thanks for sparing him the waste of time. He bolted two soft-boiled eggs and mustard toast and three roasted potatoes before Percy looked satisfied with his intake, and relented.

'Go on, then,' Percy said, and Harry was clattering down the stairs before he'd even finished.

He had a new source of anxiety, approaching the hospital, but Madam Pomfrey was no-where to be seen. Instead, it was Tonks who greeted him. Harry did a double-take on seeing her, and peered at her closely.

'Wotcher,' she said, waving him through the doors, and closing them in after. 'All right, Harry?'

'Yeah. Tonks, you... er...'

'Oh.' Tonks touched her hair, which hung long, plain, and brown to her shoulders. 'Forgot in all the fuss.' A little wrinkle formed between her brows, and pink spread like a rush of paint down to the tips that were shrinking up to meet it, and her eyes darkened from blue to black, the faint spread of freckles over the bridge of her nose vanishing. Harry blinked.

'That was cool,' he said, and Tonks twitched her lips, but didn't smile. Harry drew a deep breath. 'I'm sorry,' he amended, knowing that was what she really wanted to hear.

'You should be,' Tonks replied heavily. 'We talked about you sneaking off alone, Harry, and you did it anyway. It's not your place to be running around spying on everything and digging on secrets.'

'No, it's yours, I guess,' Harry retorted, piqued at that. 'Or the Order or whoever you're really. Doesn't matter it's all to do with me, and I might want to know the truth!'

'Harry.'

He turned away from Tonks's glower to the source of that quiet voice. Lupin lay on a bed behind a half-drawn curtain. He looked wretchedly tired, his lips pale smudges, his eyes sunken, so colourless that his pupils were little pinpricks swimming in white. He turned on his side as Harry approached, and reached out a hand. He stopped short of touching Harry, and tucked his fingers under his limp feather pillow instead.

'I'm so sorry you had to see that last night,' Lupin murmured wearily.

Harry shuffled. It was his fault for not doing as Lupin had said, much less Tonks. Lupin hadn't wanted Harry there, and Harry had known it and gone anyway.

'How are you feeling?' Harry settled for asking, already wincing at the silly inadequacy of it.

'Like I've been run down by a lorry.' Lupin wore a bitter smile when Harry glanced up from studying his trainers. Lupin twisted the hem of his pillowcase, his fingers shaking a little. 'Harry...'

'Is it your medicine that makes it so bad?' Harry blurted in a rush. 'Only I heard what Sirius said, and Marcus told me once with cancer it's like that, the medicine makes you really sick, I mean I know it's not cancer, it's-' And he choked himself to a stop, horrified he'd almost named it, and with Tonks listening in and everything. Gaz's words about hivvs and queers rang again in Harry's ears. Whether Tonks would even know what Aids was he could hardly guess, but she would certainly go looking it up- no, she'd known last night, hadn't she? Bad blood.

Lupin paled even more at this, but for two spots high in his cheeks flushed fever hot. He didn't speak for a long time, as Harry squirmed and wished he knew the spell for taking things back, for rewinding time, for erasing horrible things you said without meaning to.

'I- just,' Harry managed, and to his shame felt tears pricking his eyes suddenly. 'I didn't know you were that sick. I'm really sorry.'

Abruptly Lupin sat up, and his arm snaked around Harry's back and pulled. 'I'm all right,' Lupin whispered, 'I'm not going anywhere. I won't leave you alone.'

Til that very moment Harry hadn't even known he was worried about it. Lupin saying it broke some kind of strange dam inside him, though, and it all burbled to the surface and spilled over, all of it. Fawkes and the Dursleys and Sirius and the Malfoys and Neville and the unicorn and all of it, Snape and Rita Skeeter and his mum and he didn't even know he was sobbing into Lupin's shoulder as Lupin rocked him til he heard the door shut quietly behind Tonks, and that only made him cry harder. Lupin let him have it out, shifting only to remove Harry's glasses and set them safely aside. Harry cried himself out so long his stomach began to hurt and his nose clogged up with snot and all of it made him too tired to really stop, so that even when the worst of the storm passed he couldn't quite stopper it up again, and hiccoughed into Lupin's shirt- soaking wet now from Harry weeping into it- and he was hot and sweaty with the effort of feeling so much, but Lupin took no mind of any of that. His hand petted Harry's damp hair soothingly, and he didn't stop til Harry had to shift, his knees gone numb from kneeling awkwardly on the hard metal edge of the cot.

'Here, sit,' Lupin said then, softly so as not to disturb the quiet all around them. He put Harry upright against the pillows, and fetched the glass of water that stood on the bedside table. He charmed it cool, and Harry sipped gingerly, wincing in relief as the water soothed his swollen throat. He shared it with Professor Lupin, who drank gravely, and set it aside again, and sat looking at Harry, his hand resting on Harry's knee.

Harry scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes, and took his glasses back. Lupin's face swam into focus, and his eyes were red, too, his cheeks wet. Harry swallowed with difficulty. Lupin patted his knee.

'It's all been very hard,' Lupin commented quietly, 'hasn't it?'

Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He shrugged.

'And not getting easier for the wishing.' Lupin turned his head, then, to gaze out the window. 'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'I thought I would do the only thing I could do. I had to turn him in- conscience demanded no less, and I'd already waited so long, endangering you, endangering the school. I thought- I thought somehow if I saw him, I would feel- sure. I would have the strength to do what I needed to do. I didn't.' He fell silent for a minute, and Harry, wondering at him, didn't interrupt his thoughts. 'I don't know if he's guilty or not,' Lupin said at last, almost too low for Harry to hear, inches away. 'If he's not... if he's not, I don't know what to do about him.'

Harry steeled himself as much as he could. He felt like jelly all over, and his heart was tripping a broken rhythm, but he had to tell the truth now, and all of it. 'Professor,' he said. 'Sirius was helping me figure out why Quirrell is-'

The headache. In all the excitement he'd forgot the headaches. 'Quirr-' he tried, and the sound got all mangled in his throat, went to mush on his tongue, and the pain sprouted in his head and spread roots through his skull and-

'Harry!' Lupin grabbed him by the temples and peeled his eyelids back, staring down into his eyes. 'Tonks!' he shouted, and the door crashed open. 'Harry, stop thinking about it. Quidditch. Tell me about Quidditch, tell me how many goals you scored at practise yesterday.'

'Nn-nnine,' Harry ground out.

'Nine, excellent. Assisted or solo? Tonks, get Dumbledore now. No time for walking, Floo him here. We need a Legilimancer. Harry? Assisted goals?'

'Fffour.' The pain eased just a little. Harry gasped. 'I- was- I got th-three- Oliver says- says I'm- learning control-'

'I'll just bet you are. Have you learnt the Emberlyn Manoeuvre yet? Yes? Describe it for me.'

'Diamond formation. Chaser in the lead runs the Quaffle-' It was getting easier to speak. Harry discovered he was clutching Lupin's wrists, and tried to release his deathgrip. 'Back-pass the Quaffle and fall back right, back-pass and fall back left, feint back-pass for the goal.'

'Don't you need three brooms of equal speed?'

'Only til the end. Oliver wants me on the last pass, to make the goal with the Nimbus. Always take advantage of the Nimbus for speed.' The Nimbus. Sirius had given him the Nimbus. Sirius was watching Quirrell-

'Mr Potter.' A gentle touch to his forehead made one too many hands for Lupin, and Harry blinked up to find Dumbledore leaning over him now. He peered into Harry's eyes for a moment, first with and then without his own glasses, and he removed Harry's delicately. Then gravity vanished, and Harry was floating, falling, falling very very far down, to the caves deep in the earth where he found the stone. Gleaming like a star in the reflected light of his wand. He drew closer, boots splashing in a river that flowed from who knew where, a soft hissing accompaniment to the singing triumph in his breast. He touched a gloved finger to the cave wall and spoke a single word, and magic carved into the rock, sundering it with a resounding crack. The small oblong stone he held in his hand pulsed with power. It was perfect.

Dumbledore covered Harry's eyes with his weathered hand. 'Mr Potter,' the Headmaster said gently, 'please forgive me, but it's better if you sleep for a bit.'

'No,' Harry protested, but it went unheard. The last thing he was sure of was Lupin stroking his temple as Dumbledore solemnly intoned, ' _Dormeo_ ,' and everything went dark.

* * *

 _The first sighting of the Grim that fall term was in the tea leaves of Abluth Masterson's Divination assignment._

 _As all witches and wizards know, the Grim is an omen of darkest doom. The Grim is a portent of death, and haunts those who encounter it til fate befalls them. Abluth Masterson, a fourth year Hufflepuff of Muggle origin, unwisely laughed off the 'blob of nonsense' in his cup that dreary Wednesday. His last letter home was, tragically, of bright disposition and filled with the petty fancies of a child untroubled by thoughts of the future; 'He wanted a camera for Christmas,' recalled classmate Hortense Yarrow, 'he'd just heard you could enchant the film and he was quite excited to try it for himself.' But there would be no tomorrows for Abluth, who was discovered dead in the showers by second-year Huffie Remus Lupin. It was an accident most sombre: Abluth appeared to have slipped on a sliver of discarded cake soap, bashed his head against the tap, and there laid lonely and cold for some hours before anyone thought him missing. Lupin, understandably distraught, vanished from the school for a week, returning hollow-eyed and quiet. That was only the first of many strange 'accidents' which followed young Lupin at the school..._

 _...for, as students of Divination may learn, if they pursue the art into its most esoteric heights, the Grim does not merely haunt the individual to whom it is first revealed. The mournful cry of the black dog can be heard months before and months after a death, but unlike the crow of the bittern, the dove in a sickroom, or the croak of the magpie, the Grim's howl touches all who hear it. Did the Grim follow not Abluth Masterson, the first victim, and Timmie Jonston, the second, Eliza Little, the third, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Benjamin Fenwick, Lillian and Edgar Bones and their children John and Sarah, even James and Lily Potter- all linked only by the single thread of acquaintance with one Remus Lupin, himself double-cursed with the name of the son of a she-wolf and Lupus, the Latin for wolf?_

 _'Actually, it's from Lupinus, like the bean,' said Myfawny Lupin, a dear old bird who sadly passed away before publication of this tome. 'I always heard we took on the name because we used to sell the beancurd in the market back in Spain.'_

 _Reader, decide for yourself- one highly unlikely, in this author's opinion, if not a bit suspiciously downplaying the strange and unknowable curse no doubt laid against the Lupins and left to fester on the unprepared shoulders of young Remus, dragging innocents with him to darkest doom. Sad enough what befell those young people many years ago, who started off so happily in 1971- but far more worrisome that Lupin remains at large still today, and so closely linked to the saviour of the Wizarding World. Yes, dear Reader: Harry Potter himself. Has the howl of the Grim been meant for Harry Potter all along? Turn to Chapter seven to explore the many signs which so misfortunately point to... yes._

 _~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from_ Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy


	19. Immortal, Indivisible, Infinite

_In Which Magic Alters Where It Alteration Finds._

'Harry.'

He woke slowly, feeling as if he were in a great fog. Oh- the fog wasn't real, after all, it was only that his glasses had been removed. The soft-edged blurs eased as Harry fumbled the frames over his ears, but it was still dark and very quiet, and he knew without so much as thinking of a clock that it was very late at night, or very early in the morning. Everything felt still and strange, the way it did when you woke out of a really vivid dream and didn't quite know where you were for a moment.

'Harry?'

'I'm all right, Professor.' Harry pushed himself up on his elbows. 'Where's everyone gone?'

'Off to bed hours ago. The entire castle is asleep, in fact. We're the only ones awake just now, and it's time.'

'Time for what?'

'To do something about all this nonsense and bother. To end it, I think. If we do our work well, yes, to end it.' Harry was presented with his shoes, which he didn't remember removing- but, well, it was on the other side of that fog alongside being changed into his pyjamas. His old grey hoodie was folded atop his jeans and socks, but he couldn't quite think what to do with them; they were just familiar, his, and that was the peculiar blunted end of that thought. He stood staring long enough, lost in nothing, that the soft repetition of his name startled him into a jump. His heart hammered, but heavily, straining.

'Sorry, Professor,' he said numbly.

'You'll have rest when we've finished, Harry. That's a promise.'

The corridors were deserted, of course. It was a bit like Christmas, and he liked Hogwarts like this, empty but not the least bit lonely. All the portraits were snoring softly, curled up in the bottom of their frames or resting against the sides with their eyes shut and mouths hanging a little bit open the way Ron's did when he napped during History of Magic. Ron was probably upstairs in the Gryffindor dorms, and Neville and Dean and Seamus too. He'd been horrid disruptive to their sleep these past few months, hadn't he, always having nightmares and headaches. His head hurt now, a bit, more heavy and achey than anything, but distant, too, as if he had a shield inside him that was holding back the worst of it. That must have been what Dumbledore did to him.

'Yes,' was the quiet reply, when he asked. 'What Dumbledore did is called Legilimency.'

'Oh, I know what that is,' Harry said. 'He told me about it.'

'He's very skilled, considering.'

'Considering?'

'Considering his only opponents are schoolchildren.' Harry looked up. In the dim, the pale eyes gazing back at him were impossible to read. 'And the occasional Minister foolish or brave enough to challenge the hero who defeated Grindelwald. I've often wondered how much of Dumbledore's reputation rests on that duel and how much in fear that he could pluck secrets from the mind of anyone who dared stand against him. Everyone has some secret they would wish to protect. Knowledge is power. And a man like Dumbledore knows how to wield both.'

Harry didn't quite know what to make of that. He pondered it as they walked, content to let his professor guide his steps and not think too much about their direction. Draco had said something, too, about Harry and secrets- he'd called Harry a treasure chest of secrets, or something like that, and sometimes Harry felt that way, except less like a treasure chest and more like... more like Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell, maybe. Filled to the brim, seconds away from choking him, trapping him inside with all his secrets til they drowned him. Harry shivered. Yes. And Dumbledore, Dumbledore on the other side of the glass, Dumbledore had the key and wouldn't give it up. Like the key to Harry's Gringott's vault. Dumbledore knew Harry knew he had it, and hadn't offered it back yet. And Dumbledore knew about the Dursleys, didn't he, or at least he knew about Aunt Petunia lying and the cupboard under the stairs, but he hadn't done anything about it. What was he waiting for?

'You've been very brave, Harry.'

Harry rubbed his eyes. 'No,' he mumbled.

'But you have been. Some of it, perhaps, was ignorance of your circumstances, of what awaited you in Wizarding society. But you've been much as your parents would have wished you to be, and others have taken their cues from you. No small feat, to bend the Wizarding World to your will. You could have great influence. You've even tamed Severus Snape, and I wouldn't have thought that possible.'

'He hates me,' Harry said, recalling some of Snape's whiplash remarks. 'I don't know how to fix that.'

'Severus has never known anything other than hate. Even his love is jealous and poisonous. But he has the soul of a pragmatist, and you've made it practical for him to work with you. You could be more to him than his jailor, as Dumbledore. Have you realised that yet? And that where Snape goes, his House will follow, and where the children follow, so will the parents? You could have him, and all he'll bring you, for bargain price. He's never wanted real power. Only to serve someone worthy of it.'

The idea of Snape serving anyone was ludicrous, but the idea of Snape serving Harry was impossible even to imagine. Harry shook his head, bemused. 'Don't reckon,' he began, but couldn't reckon even the end of his own sentence. He was tiring. His feet were heavy, and his head too, but everything in between was floaty and far away. He made fists with his hands and couldn't feel them clenching.

'We're nearly there.' And they were. Harry looked about him, and at first it could have been any dusty, little-used path, walls bare of tapestry and paintings, the stone niches meant for sculptured guardians empty, the sconces on the walls bare of torches. But, Harry noticed suddenly, it wasn't actually dusty. Which meant it wasn't little-used. Bare, yes, but only recently removed of anything which might entice someone to linger. And Harry had been here before. He'd stood just at this very door before, in fact, and watched his own hand reaching for the latch with a sense of strange familiarity.

'Wait, Harry.'

'Sir?'

A flick of a wand, and soft music began to play. It was a harp- Harry had never heard a harp before, but he'd seen pictures of Cupids holding them, and ladies in his history textbook at Crowhill, lap-sized instruments with strings like guitars. This one played itself as soon as it was conjured, a lilting lullaby that vibrated tenderly through the still air. To the backdrop of that tinny trill, Harry closed his fingers on the doorknob and turned it.

'Oh,' he said, but somehow he was not at all surprised to find the very large, very dangerous looking monster resting its three heads on two paws the size of Harry's torso. It had six floppy ears, three wet noses, and innumerable fangs visible under the drooping black jowls, but its eyes were closed, its hot smelly breath sighed out peacefully, and its long shaggy tail was curled tenderly about its supine body.

'It won't wake up?' Harry whispered anxiously.

'Music to soothe the savage beast.' His professor chuckled. 'Hagrid is a soft touch, you know, Harry. He would never believe even a brute like a cerebus could do more harm than a week-old puppy. His magical talent may be indifferent, but Hagrid's instincts are true. There's always a way to tame wild magic, if you're patient enough to learn it. Clever enough for a first defence. But too clever. Once I understood they had rested their strategy on deception and diversion, the rest fell into place.'

Harry stepped carefully, nonetheless. It seemed the entire room was taken up by the three-headed dog, which twitched in its sleep as if it dreamed of running, little whines and sighs escaping it now and then. There was just enough room to creep past it pressed tight to the wall, and soon Harry saw there was another door, exactly opposite the one they'd come in. Every single floorboard seemed designed to squeak- and Hogwarts was generally made of stone, not wood, much less wood that seemed ready to collapse at any moment! Harry held his breath til spots danced over his eyes, but somehow they made it past the dog, and Harry burst through the door in a hurry, sagging in relief when they had shut the door again behind them.

He had no sooner made it over the threshold, however, when he slipped off the edge of a step that didn't have anything beneath it, and then he was falling.

He had time for a panicked yell, and then he landed. Or bounced, rather, something hard but springy yielding to his bodyweight and flipping him over. He scrambled in the dark, scratching his hands on leaves and twigs- a forest? Had he somehow done an Alice in Wonderland and fallen up? Even as he thought that he realised it was worse. The tree was grabbing hold of him. There- his ankle, a vine slithering about up his leg and winding tight. There, one hand yanked out from under him, and he flattened, smashing his nose on a trunk of some kind, bark and the frames of his glasses scraping into his face, and vines clawing all over him like tiny ants, like snakes, winding and winding and tightening their hold til his whine of fear snuffed out, all the breath squeezed out of him.

'Devil's Snare, and quite a good specimen,' said his professor. Harry could only just make him out, with his head being twisted away by the vines and the darkness nearly absolute. He flinched when something cut that darkness- a flame, flaring bright and cold. His professor had landed about six feet away from Harry, and sat calmly as he was swallowed up by twining branches. The tip of his wand glowed, growing brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at. 'Shame to destroy it. Be still, Harry. Panic makes you useless, and I have use yet for you.'

Harry shut his eyes frantically as the blue ball of light exploded outward, and rained down on him.

Then he was falling again, and this time he hit something much more solid than a plant. He landed on his shoulder, and it took the brunt of his weight, but the rest of him was only a moment behind and his head cracked dizzyingly on stone. Harry lay where he sprawled, breath knocked out of him alongside his sense, and roused only when the professor bent over him, peering narrow-eyed at him.

'At your age,' he said, 'I had already taught myself the feather-weight charm. You'd do well to study it.'

'Urgh,' Harry answered. He brushed at something that tickled his cheek, knocking it away. Something else crawled through his hair, and that motivated him to pick himself up. The buzzing that had blended with the ringing in his noggin was coming from insects, hundreds of them, all flying frantically through the large empty room they had landed in. Harry checked his glasses, and found them unbroken, miraculously. His old Muggle pair would have been cracked and misshapen after a beating like that. Harry slid them back on and craned his neck. It was still horribly dark, but he could just about see the plant that had tried to murder him. There was a wickedly large hole in the middle of it, through which Harry and his teacher must have fallen- or floated, one of them at least- but it was closing back up slowly, sullenly. A few of the insects tried to escape, only to be rebuffed by snapping vines.

'We need to go through that door,' his professor murmured, pointing to the plain wooden slab which fit rather poorly into the jamb. 'It's locked.'

'I know that charm,' Harry said, fumbling in his shirt for his wand, but the professor shook his head.

'This is no ordinary lock,' he cautioned Harry. 'It won't respond to the Alohomora. Any door which invites our attention should be considered suspicious. What do you make of it?'

Harry considered this. If it was true the door was locked, then there was no other way Harry could see to get out other than back up, the way they'd come, and that meant the Devil's Snare, and anyway they wanted to go forwards, not backwards. He brushed away more of the bugs as they tried to land on him, slapping one away from his neck as it tried to get down the back of his shirt. One flew too close to his eyes, and instinctively Harry grabbed it. He planned to hurl it across the room in disgust, but the feel of cold metal against his palm startled him. Carefully he cupped his hands around it, peering closely. It wasn't a bug at all, though it had long fluttering wings. And it wasn't a Snitch, though he'd thought maybe when he'd felt it; it was just like the Snitch he still kept hidden in his trunk from his first disastrous match. This was about the same size as a Snitch, and familiar gold as well, but it wasn't a ball. It was a key.

Key. And prominent on that door was a keyhole.

'One of these keys opens the door,' Harry said.

His professor nodded. 'Yes,' he agreed, with cool irritation. 'Any one of these hundreds of keys. The Geminio spell, Harry, can replicate any object, animate or inanimate, charmed, cursed, or even Muggle. Fine work, just as the Devil's Snare is masterfully designed. But that leads us to an obvious problem...' He lifted his wand and fired off a spell. _'Finite! Finite! Finite!'_

Three keys dropped to the floor. Harry bent to scoop them up, not without a moment's trepidation- none of them had hurt him yet, but after the Devil's Snare Harry was in a cautious mood. He carried the three dead keys and the one still struggling in his grip to the door, and carefully inserted one in the lock. He was unsurprised to find it flared red-hot the moment it touched the door. He dropped all of them with a curse he'd heard from Ron- it was almost satisfying, given the hurt the door had just inflicted on him- and stuffed his fingers into his mouth. Blisters had formed instantly from the heat, and throbbed with pain.

'Now what?' Harry wondered, turning back, and stopped mid-syllable. 'I know what to do,' he said, sudden excitement filling him. 'I know what to do. It's not the keys that are important, it's the lock.'

'The lock?'

It was just like the Door he'd encountered at Christmas. It even rather looked like that Door, with a big old-fashioned iron keyplate and tumbler lock. 'We need to get the keyplate off,' Harry said. 'If we remove the lock, we don't need a key at all! Is there anything in here we can use for tools?' He eyed the key that had burnt him unhappily. It was the only thing that might work on the bolts, but he wasn't keen on trying it. Maybe if he wrapped his hand in something first, like his shirt? He fumbled with his buttons, but then he was being urged back a step as his professor joined him before the door.

'Deception,' he reminded Harry. 'Deception and diversion. No, we don't need a key, not when we have wands.' He touched the tip of his wand to the keyplate. It began to glow red.

'I thought _Alohomora_ didn't work,' Harry protested, but saw immediately he'd misunderstood. 'Transfiguration,' he gasped, watching bright orange dust spread out from the wand to the edges of the plate. 'Iron can be Transfigured to rust.'

'Well done,' his professor congratulated him, and gave the door a little nudge as the keyplate crumbled and vanished. 'You might be clever enough for the next challenges after all. Let's see what you can do, Potter.'

There was a chess set, next, only the board was half as large as the Quidditch pitch and the pieces were giant obelisks of granite and marble. The wreckage of a failed game littered the board, ragged chunks of stone scattered as they'd fallen in battle, sheered-off slabs jutting up like gravestones and just as eerie. Harry shivered at the grating sound of the giants marching into place for a new game, coming to life and falling still, inanimate, as soon as they found their square. It was obvious he was meant to play his way across the board to get to the door on the other side- and just as obvious it was no easy task. And Harry was rubbish at chess, despite all Ron's tutoring.

'Well? Deception,' said his professor. 'Think, Harry. What's the clever way through? Stop being such a Gryffindor and use that lump of grey matter in that hard skull of yours.'

Think. Harry could barely think. 'We could... we could try just going round it,' he suggested feebly. But, no. The board was the entire floor, from wall to wall. And Harry knew enough about magic to know that if they stepped on that board, something bad would happen. 'We could... levitate over it? The feather-something charm you mentioned?'

'An idea with some potential; but not useful over long distances, and draining besides. We'll need our magic to confront the rest of these challenges.'

'And maybe they'd expect us to try that, because there's no other way around.' Harry fretted with his blistered fingers. 'We... could... I wish we had brooms. I could outfly a heavy old statue on my Nimbus.' But even as he was saying it Harry was thinking of something else- Sirius had given him the Nimbus, and Sirius Black could turn himself in a dog.

'Better,' approved his professor. 'Hold still, Harry.'

Being Transfigured was a very strange thing to endure. Harry felt himself shrink, and the world got smaller and smaller and greyer and smellier. He craned his head to the side and saw his hands had become paws, small and pale and capped with little claws. He rubbed them over his long whiskers, something that was half instinct and half crazed suspicion- the large ears confirmed it, sensitive and sleek beneath his paws. He'd been turned into a gerbil. And, like a gerbil, he tried to dart away and hide when his new senses ticked to the presence of a predator, but he wasn't near fast enough. A talon grabbed him about the middle, and then he was being yanked into the air. Harry struggled at first, but then they were flying, and terror paralysed him. His mind was so utterly blank with shock and fear that he was hardly aware of swooping high above the chess pieces, big black and grey blobs which stirred only a little and did nothing to stop them passing by. Then he was set back safely on the ground, and launched into a skittering run that came to an abrupt end when his Transfiguration reversed itself, and Harry became Harry again, scrambling on all fours directly into the path of a troll.

'Not again,' Harry groaned, and then just kept right on scrambling. The troll roared right over his head as Harry ducked between its tree-trunk-sized legs. Cedric would have been proud of the way he performed a roll and a spring, lurching back to his feet. He yanked out his wand and aimed it, and it was just like that day in the dungeon with Draco. _'Stupefy!'_ Harry shouted, and the spell left his wand with a burst of power like a lightning bolt, a twang like electricity exploding out of him. The hand that had been covered in unicorn blood, his mother's wand, a spell he knew would work. The troll dropped over with a thunderous crash, and was still.

'Hmm,' his professor said, lifting the hem of his robe disdainfully from the troll's twitching fat fingers. 'Don't celebrate yet,' he warned Harry. 'We're not through yet.'

Harry was teetering in exhaustion as they passed through yet another door. Harry had known Hogwarts was huge, but this was ridiculous. Were these even real rooms? Some kind of magic? It felt like the Twilight Zone. He'd always loved watching that show, but being the inadvertent star of one of its crazy stories was an unwelcome experience. All he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep. He'd even go happily to his usual cot in the hospital wing, if he could just shut his eyes for a while on a soft pillow.

'Soon. There,' said his professor, soft and cool, and pointing. Unnecessarily. This room was no larger than Lupin's office in Crowhill Boys Home, just large enough for a laboratory table, like the ones in the Potions classroom, and an array of stoppered bottles. 'Ah,' his professor murmured with a strange little smile. 'Severus. I should have expeted this. Masterful.'

'Sir?'

'Only magic could have defeated each previous challenge. Anyone surviving to this point would expect to expend yet more magic. But- have you guessed it?'

Harry had. 'There will be no foolish wand waving,' he said, half to himself, half in reply. He had spotted the parchment on the lab table, and approached cautiously, peering at it. 'Snape wrote that,' he said, recognising the spidery handwriting. 'It's... instructions. A potions receipt?'

'A riddle.' The professor laughed, abrupt and rusty. 'A riddle. Ah, my dear Severus. His conceit is the absence of deceit- this is as simple as logic.'

'Well, I don't understand it,' Harry admitted. The words were swimming before his eyes. He removed his glasses to rub at his aching eyeballs. He propped himself up against the table before thinking it was probably unwise-

He nearly jumped out of his shoes. As soon as his skin touched the wood, a sheet of flame ignited, cutting the room in half just beyond the table. The heat drove Harry back a step, shielding his face with his arm. He stared hopelessly.

'There. Do you see it?'

Harry did. The flames were green. Like a Floo. And on the other side of the flames was another room. They had to go through it to get out.

'Concentrate, Harry. I suspect this is the final step. We're almost through.'

Harry snatched the receipt from the table, singeing his sleeve in the process, though the parchment seemed impervious to the fire licking at it. Harry retreated to safety near the door they'd come in, wiping sweat from his forehead. The little room was heating up rapidly, and Harry was uncomfortably hot. It was an effort to concentrate on reading, and even so he had to read it two, three times, the words tumbling about and knocking against each other in his head.

Snape had written:

 _Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_  
 _Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_  
 _One among us seven will let you move ahead,_  
 _Another will transport the drinker back instead,_  
 _Two among our number hold only nettle-wine,_  
 _Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line_  
 _Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore_  
 _To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_  
 _First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_  
 _You will always find some on nettle wine's left side_  
 _Second, different are those who stand at either end_  
 _But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_  
 _Third as you see clearly, all are different size_  
 _Neither dwarf nor giant hold death in their insides;_  
 _Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_  
 _Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

'There's two good ones,' Harry surmised with difficulty. 'One's for going through the Floo, one's for going back after, I reckon. And two bottles of wine and three of poison. But that's all I'm sure of.' To his shame, tears pricked his eyes, and he wiped them under the guise of catching the sweat dripping down his cheeks. 'If we could just rest,' he tried to say gruffly, but his voice wobbled.

'There's no time, Harry.'

He took a steadying breath. The words were worse than useless for him. Two, four, third, first- none of it made any sense at all to him, all jumbled together like that. He hated puzzles. Hermione would have loved this, but she wasn't here, and he couldn't do it alone. He could die of the heat before he figured it out, and he'd probably still get it wrong and poison himself, drinking the wrong thing-

Reckless inspiration seized him. He grabbed the bottle at the end and ripped out the stopper, dropping it to the floor. He smelled the potion, sticking his nose right into the mouth of the bottle.

'What are you doing!' His professor nearly grabbed him, hovering furiously at his side. 'Even the fumes can be poisonous- cease this foolishness at once!'

'He told me the poisons are delicious and the medicines are awful.' Harry smelled chocolate and mint. Definitely a poison. The next one was sugary, lemony, the colour of sultanas, and it gave off a definite whiff of alcohol. The nettle wine. The next one- Harry jerked back at the first sniff. Like one of the Weasley twins' dungbombs, concentrated in liquid form. The other smelly potion was a new level of awful altogether, like unwashed socks soaked in rotted eggs. Harry gagged, breathing through his mouth until he thought he could drink it all in one go. It wouldn't be worse than cleaning the overflowing bogs at Crowhill in summer. Still, he wished direly for another troll to fight instead.

It tasted even worse than it smelled.

'How can you be sure that one will get you through the flame?'

'It's Snape,' Harry said thickly, manfully resisting the need to scrape the stain of the potion off his tongue with something more pleasant, like the bottom of his shoe. He stood shuddering, but though his stomach rebelled wildly, he didn't feel like he'd been poisoned. He didn't drop dead, at any rate. 'He would definitely make you drink the worst one first.'

'Test your theory, then.'

His confidence in Snape's contrary nature got him to the edge of the table. It wasn't a real Floo- real Floos didn't burn you, and Harry was steeled to the possibility of watching himself go up like a match if he'd got it wrong. He sucked in one last breath, bit his lower lip to keep himself from screaming if it hurt, and stuck his arm through.

It went.

Harry stood staring around at their newest room as his professor drank the rest of the potion and followed him through the flames. It wasn't a room, really, more like a cavern- in fact it reminded Harry of the vaults in Gringott's, full of treasures, jewels, an obscene amount of gold Galleons all stacked up to the vaulted ceilings, fancy armour and swords and crystal balls that swirled with light and shadow, a strange cabinet with a big stone bowl in it and dozens of little bottles- Harry shuddered, he didn't want to think about swallowing anything else weird and disgusting for as long as he lived- and he knew somehow they were very far down, deep in the mountains below Hogwarts, and that the only way to this room was the way they'd come. Months of searching, and in the end there'd been no choice, no choice at all but to come by way of all those traps, all those chances to trip up, slip up, die. But they hadn't died. They'd made it through.

'Harry. Look.'

He'd seen it. His heart caught in his throat. The Mirror of Erised. It was here.

The chamber echoed with their footsteps as they walked the long path through the riches all around them. Or maybe it was just the frantic drumbeat of Harry's heart in his chest. He swayed as they came to a stop, and went to his knees. His hands came up to clutch the frame, but he was aware of only one thing. His mum and dad. They were there, smiling, just as they had been at Christmas. Still perfect. Still waiting for him. They hadn't gone just because Dumbledore had taken the Mirror away. His mum mouthed his name.

'Harry.'

He couldn't quite drag his eyes away. But he was aware of his professor kneeling beside him.

'Harry, you remember what you have to do.'

His father shook his head sadly. James pushed his glasses up with a finger, the way Harry had when he'd had his old glasses that slid down his nose all the time. Don't, he said, very clearly, but silently. He wasn't real. Dumbledore had been clear about that. They weren't ghosts, Lupin had sworn to that. They were dead, his parents, and the people in the Mirror were just animated pictures, like the photographs in his album. They weren't real memories, even. Just images of people he didn't remember.

With enormous reluctance, Harry closed his eyes. He put his hand into his pocket.

When he looked again to the softly lumiscent surface of the Mirror, it was to watch himself take his hand out of his pocket, to discover himself holding a stone.

Harry mimicked his reflection. The stone, the real stone, sat in his palm, round and smooth and not terribly special.

'Now?' he asked.

'Now,' his professor confirmed.

Harry reached toward his reflection. They met at the glass. Then Harry pushed against it, and let go. The stone tipped from his fingers into Other Harry's hand. Other Harry curled a fist about it, weighing it thoughtfully. Then, with a solemn nod, he handed it back.

Harry offered it to his professor, who took it reverently. The stone was ambered now, and something flickered in its centre, clouds billowing and fading, a storm that blew apart and let the sun shine through, liquid gold, impossibly beautiful and unimaginably precious.

'Well done, Harry,' Quirrell whispered. 'Very well done.'

* * *

Harry came out of the dream with a little start. He was cold, and stiff from laying still so long.

Dumbledore stood talking quietly with people in robes. He recognised Snape- Snape was staring at Harry the way he always did, nothing remarkable there. But someone stepped around Snape and came to Harry's bed. Lupin. He crouched at Harry's side, lifting the quilt from the end of the cot and covering Harry, tucking him in at the shoulders.

'Rest,' he said briefly. 'It's all right. You're all right, Harry. It was just a bad dream.'

'Lying to him serves no purpose,' Snape sneered.

Lupin stroked Harry's forehead, his thumb brushing over Harry's scar. 'Rest,' he said again, quietly, just to Harry, as if no-one else existed. 'Just rest, Harry. We'll talk when you wake up.'

He obeyed. Lupin's hand lay on his chest, warm and comforting. Safe. Harry let his eyes drag closed on the sight of Snape scowling, Madam Pomfrey worrying, McGonagall with her lips pursed and her arms crossed tight, Bill Weasley and Tonks in a frowning conference with Kingsley Shacklebolt, and a strange man in funny clothes seated in a chair with them examining something with a magnifying glass propped at his eye, his scrutiny determined. It wasn't til Harry was almost out that he thought he'd noticed something odd about Lupin. Lupin didn't wear any jewellery, not that Harry had ever noticed. It seemed an odd time to take up wearing silver bracelets, specially with a chain between the pair. But the thought wasn't enough to keep him awake, and he enjoyed the sensation of falling, gently, as if he'd learnt that feather-weight charm after all.


	20. Half Chess

_In Which The Plot, Afoot, Commences Its Journey._

When Harry woke, it was to the blushing orange of afternoon light streaming in through the windows, and the sight of the dark man bending over him.

'Oh,' Harry said, mind not yet caught up to his blinking eyes and rumbling stomach. 'It's you.'

The dark man took hold of his face. His fingers were cool, and firm, but gentle enough as he tilted Harry's head back. 'Be still and don't blink,' he said, and Harry obeyed. He had the faintest sense of vertigo, and a pulse of ache in his temples, but when he grimaced the dark man shushed him and stared deeply into his eyes.

'I sense nothing untoward,' the dark man reported over his shoulder, and despite himself Harry's eyes darted to look. The dark man recalled him with a tap to the cheek. 'But a deeper look might tip off our opponent.' He lingered staring at Harry a moment longer, then abruptly let him go. He put Harry's glasses on for him, sliding the earpieces carefully into place and resting the lenses gently across the bridge of his nose. The familiar blur resolved, and the dark man sat revealed as Professor Snape.

Oh.

Harry took in a ginger breath. He was in the hospital wing- he knew that place almost as well as his dorm, lately. And it was empty excepting himself in bed, Snape sitting on the edge of the mattress beside him, and Tonks.

'I-' Harry began, but his stomach gave off a hideously loud gurgle, and everyone froze in place.

'Mimsy,' Snape said, and a house elf appeared with a crack, peeking shyly at Harry over Snape's knee. 'Bring a tea for Mr Potter. Sandwiches will do-'

'Ham and pickle?' Harry asked hopefully. He had a strange craving for something salty. 'And cheddar? And onion crisps?'

'Crisps,' Snape acceded, though he sounded a bit strangled, ordering a magical elf to bring him Muggle food. 'Fruit as well, Mimsy, something to alleviate the unhealthy balance of Mr Potter's choices.'

'And pumpkin juice for Master Harry Potter Just Harry Please Sir?'

Tonks smothered a laugh. Snape pulled a weary face. 'No-one could stomach that combination. Milk,' he said, and waved away the elf. 'Potter,' he said, turning back to Harry then with his shoulders set sternly, as if they were in the classroom. Harry tensed reflexively. 'What is the last waking moment you remember?'

That turned out to be difficult to answer. Harry opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried to think back, but it was like searching for something at the bottom of the ever-expandable bag Lupin had given him- he couldn't see and he couldn't quite recall what he'd put in there, so he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. 'I had a headache,' he said hesitantly.

Snape nodded. 'Do you recall what you were doing to trigger it?'

He definitely recalled the fight they'd had about the headaches. No, that hadn't been about the headaches, that had been about the Dursleys, and Harry talking to Lucius Malfoy instead. It was all jumbled. He thought he had talked to Lucius Malfoy- he could remember sitting in Madam Pomfrey's office with the man- but that bled into meeting Mr Malfoy in Dumbledore's office, except that had happened before, months ago now when Harry had stumbled across those men in the Forbidden Forest- and that, too, was jumbly, and full of holes, like the old jigsaw puzzles in the game room at Crowhill, all of them missing pieces so you could never quite get the full picture put together.

Snape took Harry's silence as an answer. He nodded again, as if it confirmed something he'd expected. 'You may find you have some difficulty in recollecting recent events,' he told Harry. 'You have been carrying a passenger for a time I suspect can be measured in weeks, if not months.'

'A passenger?'

'Someone established a connection between their mind and yours,' Tonks explained gently. She came to stand by his bedside, and absently gave his hair a ruffle. Her thumb traced his lightning bolt scar, and her expression was unusually serious, unsmiling. 'It accounts for a lot of things. Your headaches. Mood swings. Your nightmares... things you were doing that you probably didn't even know about. That, and you've been Obliviated at least three times.'

'What's Obli-ligated?' Harry jumped as Mimsy returned with his lunch. 'Thanks, Miss,' he said, forgetting it would set off a wave of agitation and excitement, the way it always did when house elves were thanked. Snape banished her curtly back to the kitchens, but not before she pressed a kiss to Harry's hand and cried on him a little. Harry stared at her tears streaked damply over his knuckles. He didn't recollect he'd even asked a question til Snape seized his wrist and cleaned his hand briskly with the napkin. He curled Harry's fingers about the cool glass of milk, and pointed at the tray.

'Obliviation,' Snape said, 'is the act of displacing a memory of a specific event. It is ordinarily performed under strict conditions by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, most commonly to prevent illicit exposure of Wizarding indicia to Muggles.'

Harry cast a dubious glance at Tonks. 'It's illegal to tell Muggles about the Wizarding World,' she translated. 'So when they find out about it, Obliviators wipe their memories so they won't remember what they saw.'

'It is not wiping,' Snape corrected, as if he just couldn't help himself. 'It is imprecise to describe it as erasing a memory. In fact, the spell creates a suggestive state in which the receptor is magically induced into suppressing the memory and substituting some other interpretation- subjects very rarely experience Obliviation as "lost time", which is why it's so difficult to detect after the fact. Obliviation qualifies under three of the four criteria for Unforgivable Curses because it turns the mind against itself.'

Harry understood very little of that, except for a snippet he'd learnt in Charms. Professor Flitwick had taught them there were several categories of spells, but the most important thing to consider was intent. Jinxes and curses were for hurting people or making them do things they didn't want to do. And Harry knew he wouldn't have wanted to forget doing anything. Unforgivable sounded exactly right, so far as he was concerned. 'Someone changed my memories,' he said slowly. 'With the Obli-obliteration spell.'

Snape and Tonks exchanged the kind of look adults did sometimes, when they knew something they didn't want kids to know and were planning on lying about. Harry had seen that kind of look all the time at Crowhill from the teachers. 'Someone did,' Tonks agreed, a beat too late to cover herself. 'We'll figure it all out, Harry, I promise.'

'In the meanwhile,' Snape added, 'eat. It will ease any lingering confusion.'

Harry had lots of lingering confusion, and couldn't much see how food was going to solve it, but he poked at a triangle of sandwich. A bit of pickle oozed onto the plate with a plop. His appetite vanished. He settled for a sip of the milk instead.

And then he nearly upset his entire tray onto Snape's legs, starting so violently that both the adults jumped and looked about as if they expected ninjas to come roping down from the ceiling and attack. 'Professor Lupin!' Harry gasped.

Snape took up an instantaneous scowl. A flick of his wand banished the splatter of milk from the overturned glass, and then he stood with his arms folded tight across his chest and his lips nastily pursed. It fell to Tonks to answer.

'He's here,' she said.

And nothing else. That was no help at all. 'Where is he? And I can tell something happened that you're just not telling me!'

Tonks stopped eyeing Snape sidelong and grimaced down at Harry. 'The Minister of Magic is here,' she admitted reluctantly. 'And the Chief Auror.'

Harry blanched. 'They came for Sirius Black, didn't they.'

'And to ascertain just how long Lupin's been abetting his jailbreak,' Snape said, with a strange note of vicious satisfaction. 'Whatever Dark crimes Black's been committing are as much on his head as on-'

'Mine,' Harry interrupted flatly. 'I knew he was-'

'Stop talking,' Tonks interrupted him in turn, bowling right over his confession, and to really put the point home she swished her wand at Harry, and his voice vanished mid-word. She gave her wand a little spin about the room, and a buzzing hush fell- a privacy spell. Harry was learning to recognise them in all their iterations. 'I advise you not to continue,' Tonks said severely. 'I mean it, Harry. I'm an Auror. If you say something like that, I have to report it.'

Harry tried to retort, but though everything felt like regular talking, no sound escaped him. He settled for glaring at her. He'd known she wasn't really a teacher's assistant, of course, but what had changed to make her admit to it?

'If only the blissful quiet would last,' Snape mused. He pointed at Harry's tray. 'Eat,' he said again. 'Though silence cannot induce you to think, Potter, I would encourage you to contemplate your circumstances. Whatever bargain you struck with Lucius Malfoy may have preserved your secrets for the moment, but he will throw you over for his own preservation, and if Lupin has any sense at all he'll do the same to avoid Azkaban. His kind don't merit much consideration in the eyes of the Ministry, and it would go hard with him if he resists in the least.'

'Snape,' Tonks snapped. 'Don't.'

'I should think you of all people would support the law, Miss Tonks,' Snape replied silkily. 'After all, you are an Auror. One he willfully exposed to his wretched disease, no less.'

Tonks wiped her hands on the hem of her Muggle football jersey, and caught herself in the act. Her chin rose stubbornly in the air. 'That was hardly his fault.'

'Yes, poor Lupin. He can hardly stumble without endangering innocents. If only there were a way to ensure he couldn't harm anyone again, intentionally or otherwise. An isolated place to put him, where they might prevent him contact with anyone at risk of contracting his condition- a place with barred windows, perhaps.'

Tonks put herself toe to toe with Snape, who blinked at her ferocity and stood his ground with tense shoulders. Tonks stuck her upturned nose right into Snape's hooked beak. 'The same can be said of certain other people I can think of,' she told him flatly. 'Lucky there's men like Dumbledore who believe in second chances. I happen to agree with him. I'd think you, of all people, would support _that_.'

Harry's pillow collided with them, thudding with a muted thwap into their knees. Tonks started guiltily, stepping away from Snape and releasing Harry from the silencing spell.

'-on't say those things about him!' Harry's yell unstoppered abruptly, and everyone flinched. Snape heaved a put-upon breath, turning his head away to glare at the charts hung on the wall. Harry sucked in a breath, and held it, silencing himself til he could get ahold of his temper. His face was burning hot and he dizzy. 'Don't,' he repeated through desperately clenched jaws.

'Harry,' Tonks began, but something made her hesitate. 'Snape,' she said then, snagging the Potions professor by the sleeve. 'His eye.'

Snape looked at Harry rather reluctantly, but quickly turned keen. He held Tonks back from touching Harry, considering him from a safe distance and through narrowed eyes. 'Interesting,' he murmured. 'Anger brought it on.'

Brought what on? Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses, and felt nothing, but his finger came away with a streak of watery red on it. He stared at it uncomprehending.

'Fetch Poppy,' Snape said. Tonks didn't complain at all about being sent out- she was already headed for the door at a clip. Snape bent for the pillow, dusting it absently. He put it back in place at the head of the bed, and placed one hand against Harry's shoulder, pushing til Harry took to the idea and laid back. Snape covered his eyes with a palm that was quite cool against Harry's hot skin, and smelled a little like liver oil. Harry lay tense, plunged into darkness, clenching the sheet in his hands. He jumped when Snape whispered in his ear.

'I know what you're about,' Snape hissed quietly. 'Clever, Quirinus, but sloppy. You didn't put away your toy when you were finished playing with him. You should have closed the connection after you had the Stone.'

Stone? The Stone? Unbidden, an image came to Harry's mind- a bit of rock about the size of his fist, smoothed and polished but unremarkable. He'd had a stone like that, but- but he hadn't. Or had it been a gem? Brilliant and diamond-hard and pulsing in his fist. Where had he seen a stone like that?

'Or was that purposeful?' Harry's sense of Snape's weight hanging over him shifted, a little, and Snape's voice came from a slightly different angle, as if Snape knelt by the bed now. His hand pressed just a little more heavily over Harry's eyes. 'Distraction and deceit. Clever, yes. Leave the boy, knowing Dumbledore won't allow us to take strong measures to remove your influence. Sloppy, though. What more might you have gained from an agent inside Hogwarts? Short-sighted... or were you?'

'Severus? Some new symptom?'

'He's bleeding from the eyes.'

'And the ears,' Madam Pomfrey said, from right over Harry's head, and an edge of cotton rubbed along the shell of Harry's left ear. 'And the nose... and the gums,' she observed, pulling at Harry's lower lip with her thumb. ' _Accio_ Wishwob's Clotting Agent. Harry, sip this for me. Swish it around in your mouth a few times before you swallow. It could be the strain of facing all those traps to get to the Stone.'

'He didn't use enough magic to deplete his core.'

'His own, no, but he spent hours in a densely enchanted space under some form of possession. Albus said he was weak and disorientated. It could also be an effect of breaking the Obliviation.' Madam Pomfrey touched two fingers to Harry's wrist, taking his pulse, which fluttered like the wings of a Snitch, erratic and fast. 'Will... _he_... know Harry's recovering his memories?'

'It's possible,' was Snape's grim reply. 'I have never observed anything like this before. It's not possession, not truly. Is it, Quirinus? Perhaps I underestimated your expertise after all. These are Dark Arts of a subtle and complex nature. I thought you too much a buffoon to grasp either the power or the intricacy.'

'Severus!' Pomfrey's gasp matched the snatch of her hand, dropping Harry's arm as if it had burnt her. 'You're not saying _he_ can hear us?'

'No, I doubt such is the case, Poppy.'

Harry knew that voice even before Pomfrey greeted the Headmaster with relief. Harry felt a flicker of something in the back of his mind- things he hadn't wanted Dumbledore to know, Dumbledore knew too much already. But the thought was gone the moment Harry tried to focus on it. He tried to turn his head, but Snape hadn't let up on him. He managed to get a glimpse of the Headmaster through a gap in Snape's fingers, and what might have been people filtering in behind him, but Snape caught him at it and righted his head on the pillow.

'I don't believe that's necessary, my boy. Let Harry sit up and finish his meal.'

'Headmaster-'

'Don't mind the decor, gentlemen, ladies, we can Transfigure ourselves suitable seats, if Madam Pomfrey will permit us the use of her excellent but currently unoccupied cots. Ah ha, charming, Filius- I do love a good polka dot. Severus,' Dumbledore said, milder even than the milk, and, with a reluctant hesitation, Snape removed his hand at last. Harry sat up quickly, fumbling his glasses into place. The infirmary had quite filled up.

The Heads of the Hogwarts Houses were all there, arrayed to the left of Dumbledore's in chairs of various types, from Sprout in a slouchy brown slingback to Flitwick perched on a jewel blue ottoman, McGonagall in a stern tall seat of tufted green velvet. Dumbledore sat in posh vermillion robes in a throne-like chair spoilt by multi-coloured polka dotted cushions. Tonks had come back, too, and had found herself long red robes, her hair drawn back off her face in a braid, disappointingly plain. A tall man with a lion's mane of brassy ginger hair wore matching robes, and he was very pointedly not looking at Tonks, who did seem a bit piqued, now Harry noticed it. He seemed to be someone important, though- he was very close to Dumbledore, and he kept his shoulders and spine very straight. He reminded Harry of the Head at Crowhill, proper and cold and determined to be obeyed. Minister Fudge, who had himself a club chair of black leather, seemed a little nervous beside the lion's mane man, turning his lime green bowler hat about and about in his pudgy hands til the brim began to look a bit crumpled. Lucius Malfoy was there, too, wearing his fine robes and a stole of fox fur, with two live heads that nibbled treats from his fingers and purred when he petted them absently. Momentarily distracted by that strange delight, Harry almost overlooked the mousy young woman who stood behind Malfoy's chair. She bore a small writing desk on straps from her shoulders, a pot of ink and a long brown quill and a thick scroll of blank parchment at the ready for her notes. There was a spot of ink on her lip, which seemed a strange place for it til Harry watched her chew on the tip of her quill, her eyes narrow as she gazed about the room. She would scratch out a line, chew a bit, and then write again, very rapidly, and then fall back to chewing. She chewed in Harry's direction for a very long time.

And then there was Professor Lupin.

There was a wide berth around Professor Lupin, who stood on locked knees inside the rough circle of the crowd with his hands cuffed before him. The evidence of a sleepless night gathered in the heavy folds beside his mouth, the pallid tone of his skin, the stark purple circles surrounding his sunken eyes. Then, too, in his Muggle clothes he looked strange, misplaced, even to Harry, who wondered when he'd begun to think of long robes and funny hats as normal. Lupin looked as he would any day at Crowhill, a little rumpled, his tie hanging crooked down his chequered shirt. Only his eyes spoke of magic, a ghostly yellow that seemed to glow golden, like an animal's eyes in the dark.

'And so we convene again,' said Dumbledore, and Harry blinked. He swallowed roughly as the old wizard placed his wand on his knee, laid one hand over it as if he were about to swear a silent oath, and nodded his head regally. 'Let us begin in good order, then. Mr Lupin.'

Lupin raised his chin rather defiantly. 'Headmaster,' he replied, quite courteous, but there was an edge to the way he said Dumbledore's title, as if it meant something. The others all seemed to know what it meant, at least, because a few exchanged uneasy glances. Snape's scowl deepened a notch.

'It is a pleasure to see you again. It's been some measure of years.'

'Nine,' Lupin answered agreeably. 'To be precise.'

There was no twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, not now. Instead, his gaze seemed heavy, and perhaps a little sad. But he didn't respond to this, and instead turned toward the man in the red robes. 'The cuffs seem rather excessive, Chief Auror Scrimgeour,' he said. His tone was mild, as if he discussed nothing more urgent than the weather. 'No laws have been broken here.'

'I quite agree,' Scrimgeour replied. He had a growly sort of voice to match his mane of hair, and an accent like Lupin's, lilting Welsh. 'But Mr Lupin could be more forthcoming with information than he has been, and he's not especially known for cooperating with my Corps.'

'That might have to do with never actually being _asked_ to cooperate,' Lupin retorted. 'Am I under arrest?'

Arrest? Harry bit his lip against interrupting, but only because Snape scowled at him and twitched his wand threateningly. Why would they arrest Professor Lupin? Events were still a jumbled mess in his head, but Harry was sure Lupin couldn't have done anything wrong. Lupin wouldn't. Even Sirius Black had said so.

'Blast it, Rufus, he knows something about Black,' burst out the Minister, but derailed himself from further comment when the mousy girl began to write furiously. He glared at her til she looked up again, and then plastered on a very fake smile.

'I know many things about Sirius Black,' Lupin said. 'I know how he takes his tea, I know he was gifted at Charms and rubbish at Herbology, I know he preferred the original line-up of the Weird Sisters and that he can't tell the difference between cabernet and pinot. I don't know fuck-all about where he is or what he's doing.'

'Mr Lupin,' McGonagall interjected, scandalised.

'Your pardon, ladies. I meant to say I have no information to share about Sirius Black's whereabouts and plans. If only there were Aurors on the case.'

'Remus,' Tonks began softly, reaching out to touch his arm, but Scrimgeour sighed deeply.

'Let's get this out of the way, then. I apologise for what my predecessor in office put you through,' the Chief Auror said bluntly, facing Lupin squarely. 'There's no excusing it, but it was a time of considerable anxiety that, yes, rose to hysteria. The rights of many an innocent were trampled under the high pressure to produce arrests and assuage public fears. You were a casualty of war. But take a look about you. This is not the Wizengamot.'

'Then Dumbeldore's resigned as Chief Warlock? Congratulations on your retirement, Albus.'

Scrimgeour opened his mouth, then swallowed whatever response he would have made. 'This is not the whole of the Wizengamot,' he corrected finally. 'Mr Lupin-' He blew out another sigh, and took hold of Lupin's wrists. He wore a key on a chain about his neck, and touched it to the right-hand cuff. They fell loose and vanished in a flash of light. 'At least tell me what in all hell convinced you it was a good idea for you to personally confront Black.'

Lupin's shoulders slumped. His head fell to his chest. 'Wouldn't you,' he said softly.

'I suppose I would, at that. Very well. Poor decision making aside: did you get anything from him?'

'Not really. We shouted at each other- I shouted at him, mostly. Then Auror Tonks made it to the scene, and he fled.'

'Well done.' Scrimgeour pushed Lupin into a chair. 'That's not sarcasm. He might have killed you, or made it into the castle. Clearly he has a way onto the grounds despite the wards- though the wards are, as I'd like to point out _again_ , Dumbledore, holier than Swiss cheese. You refuse to ward against intent, and without stronger protection against certain people-'

'Certain people,' Lucius Malfoy repeated, looking up from studying his fingernails.

'Certain people whose positions of power in this school reflect the lingering divisions in Wizarding society.'

'Ah,' Malfoy mused. 'How diplomatic.'

'Failing to ward this school against Death Eaters is asking for trouble, Dumbledore.'

'An argument I recall you making a decade ago,' Dumbledore replied evenly. 'And I repeat my reply from that time. I cannot allow that. It would separate children from their parents, inducing a choice upon minds and hearts too young for a decision that weighty. Then, too, I will not penalise children who have been forced into a corner through politics to leave a haven of safety. The young are to be protected, not ostracised and banished to the fringes.'

'When the young brand their arms with the snake and skull, Headmaster, I don't call it politics. I call it corruption, criminality, and cold-blooded wickedness.'

'My, my,' Malfoy murmured.

'Regardless of the wards,' Snape said, rising and putting himself at Dumbledore's elbow. 'Black got in, and Quirrell got out. I for one think those events are connected.'

Scrimgeour greeted this with a weighty stare. He didn't like Snape, that was obvious, and looked at him with open contempt. Snape placed a hand on the back of Dumbledore's chair, and inclined his upper half in a little bow toward Fudge, who started to be suddenly addressed.

'Minister,' Snape said humbly. 'I'm sure you agree. Black had no other reason to suddenly approach the school- clearly he meant to draw attention away from what was happening inside. Quirrell took advantage of the distraction and made his move on the Stone. Clearly, they're working together in this duplicitous venture. I myself have suspected Quirrell for some time, though never with enough evidence to confront him. We have, however, evidence enough now.'

'We do?' Fudge cleared his throat. 'Of course we do! Clearly. Damning evidence. Of... things. Criminal!'

'Evidence, Severus?' Flictwick asked curiously.

Snape nodded to his colleague, but to Harry it seemed Snape's eyes were drawn to the woman who was writing busily. 'It is my belief,' Snape said, 'that Quirrell's tenure here at Hogwarts was sought with no other aim than access to a magical artefact of great renown, and an innocent dupe to help him get it.'

'You mean... you mean Black?' Fudge stuttered.

'Harry Potter,' Snape said.

All eyes snapped to Harry. He flushed under the weight of so many gazes- some incredulous, some knowing, some worried, some outraged. Lucius Malfoy looked at Harry entirely blankly. Lupin looked as if he could hardly bear it. His hands were clasped white-knuckled together and his eyes bored into Harry desperately. Dumbledore didn't look at Harry at all.

'Potter is a child,' Snape continued, after a pause long and weighty enough to sink a ship in. 'And, though a Wizarding child, nonetheless a boy raised in Muggle environs with no possible defences against a wizard both covetous and subtle. Though in truth I had my suspicions of Quirrell, no man or woman here found reason to pursue our suspicions. No doubt he sensed us circling him and turned to this boy, who would slip beneath our notice.'

'Harry Potter is the most noticed boy in all Wizarding Britain,' McGonagall protested.

'Not lately,' Snape pointed out silkily. 'Or has it escaped you all that the intrepid Rita Skeeter has been oddly scarce since Christmas?'

Harry flushed. He didn't think to hide his quick look at Lucius Malfoy til after he'd already gone and done it. And everyone in the room saw him do it.

'Lucius?' Fudge inquired, a tick of anxiety showing in the suddenly tight grip of his hands on his much-abused bowler hat.

Malfoy fed a pellet to the left fox head, which nibbled lovingly at his thumb before chomping down the treat. 'My dear Cornelius.'

'You didn't... do... anything, did you?'

'It would hardly behoove me to interfere with the free press,' Malfoy replied almost indifferently. 'Though, of course, as a concerned parent, I did express some disquiet with Miss Skeeter's characterisation of my son in two or three of her articles. And, of course, Harry is a dear friend of my son. I am naturally protective of all the children in my purview as Governor, but the Malfoy family are particularly concerned with Harry's well-being- the poor boy having no parents living to provide that care and compassion, of course.'

'Without Skeeter turning the boy's every blink and nod into an article for _The Daily Prophet_ ,' Snape continued, though not without a certain kind of smile lingering on his pale lips as if he were pleased with himself for something, 'it must have been all too easy to approach Harry on congenial terms. The boy was here alone at Christmas, or nearly, and both Hagrid and Filch reported his wanderings about the castle and the grounds. He might have met with both Quirrell and Black. One meeting would be enough to establish a connection with an unwilling mind- though, in fact, the boy may not have been unwilling. An orphaned child overwhelmed with revelations of a new world representing all he might have had- it would be only too easy for an unscrupulous individual to manipulate a child like that with, say, tales of his beloved parents.'

Harry had gone redder and redder as first Malfoy and then Snape talked. Not a few of the adults in the infirmary seemed to be struggling with their own reactions to these little speeches- McGonagall bore the look of someone repressing a gag reflex, and Fudge was aghast, badly suppressed behind a stoic smile for the woman who was, apparently, transcribing everything word for word. The faintest of frowns had appeared at Dumbledore's brow, but then the light shifted just slightly, and it was gone.

'Is this true?' McGonagall asked. 'Harry? Have you- that is, do you remember having spoken to either Sirius Black or Quirrell?'

'Yes,' Harry said, and coughed to clear his throat, but the second attempt didn't come out any clearer. 'Yes.'

'We should-' Fudge began, but trailed off uncertainly, as if he didn't have an actual suggestion to complete that sentence.

'If I may, Minister, Chief Auror, Headmaster,' Snape said, nodding to each in turn and modestly turning his head low after. 'Though three such titans, war heroes all of you, must surely already have just this strategem in mind, I feel I should raise the possibility. Quirrell may already have absconded with his prize, but Black has had no such reward. Let us bait him. He will return for Potter. His unfinished business.'

No-one spoke for a long time. Snape dared Harry with gleaming eyes. Lupin stood rigid, one hand covering his mouth as if to shut away words trying to escape.

'It's strategically sound,' Scrimgeour said, into that excruciating silence.

'Sir,' Tonks said forcefully.

'Stop writing,' Scrimgeour told the woman behind Malfoy. 'Under injunction of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Material pertaining to ongoing investigations is protected by the Decree of 1634 Part-'

'I know the decree,' the woman replied, in a piping little voice that matched her mousy looks. 'The Black investigation is still considered active?'

'Until we catch him,' Scrimgeour returned. 'I, for one, should like that to be sooner than later. Boy. Mr Potter.'

Harry jumped. 'S-sir.'

'I need not tell you that you will be in danger til we have apprehended these criminals. Your parents were Aurors. They understood this choice. They made this choice, once. To tempt a great evil into the open, where it could be destroyed.'

'You mean Voldemort.'

Everyone flinched. Nearly. Lucius Malfoy looked grim, but that was nothing on Lupin, whose eyes went flat. He clenched his hands into fists. And he wasn't looking at Harry. He was looking at Scrimgeour, and his upper lip curled back from his teeth as if he growled.

Dumbledore answered. 'I believe the conversation has turned back to the subject of manipulating children.'

'You give them too much credit,' Lupin said. And he was growling- even Harry shivered, this time, at the snarl of building anger in that usually calm voice. This was nothing on the bitterness of earlier, nothing on indignation and defenciveness. 'They're not manipulating Harry, they're manipulating me through him. Clumsily. Arrogantly. Once again, Chief Auror, you prove that your kind are incapable of learning the simplest lesson. _Ask me_.'

Scrimgeour's eyes were narrowed in distaste. But he nodded. 'Right. Mr Lupin. Help us catch the man who brought He Who Must Not Be Named down upon the greatest companions of your life. Help us bring justice to James and Lily Potter. Help us eliminate this threat to their son, a boy you once held in swaddling clothes and swore an oath to protect. Oh, I do remember that, Mr Lupin.'

Sprout, of all people, broke the gathering storm with a sunny smile familiar from classes in the greenhouses. 'Forgive an old witch her ignorance,' she said brightly, 'but do we know what can actually be done with the Stone? Aside from the obvious- though, in truth, anything I ever learnt about alchemy was an excessively, almost unspeakably long time ago.' She winked broadly at Harry.

Dumbledore followed her lead graciously, nearly managing to paper over the fact that Lupin's aggressive stance hadn't eased an iota, and the contest of stares between Lupin and Scrimgeour could have thrown sparks at any instant. 'That is no accident,' the Headmaster replied. 'I have owled Nicolas Flamel and requested his presence here. We need his expertise. It should not have been possible to substitute the Stone for another. There are many questions yet to be answered.'

'And no plan for tracking Quirrell,' Tonks added sourly. 'Vanished without a trace. Left all his belongings behind. I don't suppose you learnt anything from Harry's memories, sir?'

'Unfortunately,' Dumbledore said, 'I did not.'

'But the connection is broken? Whatever it is he did to put himself in Harry's mind?'

Dumbledore tapped his fingers on his wand, his first movement in what seemed like a long time. 'Gone,' he said.

'It cannot be gone,' Snape said. 'In fact, I have reason to believe this connection is deep-rooted, and very much active.'

'Well, which of you is correct?' Fudge demanded crossly.

'Severus is a gifted Occlumens,' Dumbledore answered. 'I am a Legilimens. I am the more qualified to judge, if I may be so bold.'

'Yet, surely it is incumbent on us to assume the worst,' Snape pressed. 'Minister, Chief Auror, my studies document several instances in which a Dark Wizard established a connection with a weaker mind, successfully implanting strange notions, re-arranging memories or indeed entirely replacing them. Though an arcane branch of magic, we have before us proof that this was accomplished. The question is not whether that connection still exists, but what can be done through it.'

Scrimgeour had come to his feet, a gruesome expression of dread and resolution both in place even as he overrode Snape's final words. 'You believe he can spy on us through Potter.'

'I rather expect he's doing so presently. Or at least has the capacity to.' Oh no. Everyone was staring at Harry again. He picked at his ham sandwich, though it turned his stomach. 'He may well be able to see out of Potter's eyes, hear from his ears, even speak with his tongue. Or kill Potter with the ease of snuffing out a candleflame. It could be a form of taboo... Potter made at least two attempts to reveal something about Quirrell, and both times was violently prevented.'

Dumbledore rose, and all sound ceased. Even Scrimgeour stopped whatever he was about to say. 'This is an inappropriate discussion for a child in a sickroom,' said the Headmaster of Hogwarts. 'If you will forgive our absence, Cornelius, Rufus, it is nearing supper, and I have a school to oversee. I need not remind my Heads of House of their duties.'

'No,' McGonagall agreed, joining him on her feet and cancelling the Transfiguration of her chair. It flowed back into cot form, and floated briskly back into place against the wall at the direction of her wand. 'Poppy, thank you for the kind use of your hospital. We'll leave you in peace.'

Fudge drew to his feet as well, frowning to himself, but as Snape passed, the Minister reached for him, snagging him into a firm handclasp. 'Fiendishly clever, Master Snape. It is Snape?'

'It is, Minister. You honour me.'

'Between you and me, old chap-' Fudge leant in for a whisper, though Harry, sat on his bed some fifteen feet away, heard clearly. 'I like your spirit, young man. Good plan. Good plan, that. We capture Black and I will remember your contribution, I promise you that. Black's a menace, no doubt of that, and if it weren't totally outlandish I'd put a price on his head. Or at least throw in an Order of Merlin to the dab hand that nabs him.'

'Minister,' Scrimgeour bit out.

'Must get back to London. Come, Scrimgeour, we're quit of this chilly place. Mr Potter-' Fudge abruptly turned on Harry, who didn't have time to wipe a squidge of pickle off his hand before Fudge seized it. 'Terrible thing, child, terrible thing. You'll mend, I'm sure, but do rush it. I hear you're quite the Quidditch star, that game with Slytherin coming up- put a few Galleons on it, don't mind saying so. Miss Woogypums-'

'Woollyfumps,' said the woman with a rather large ink stain on her chin, blinking overlarge eyes at the Minister.

'Yes, quite. Always a pleasure, these little interviews with the Fourth Estate, as it were. Do give my regards to your editor at the _Pendulum_. Mr Lupin- good lad,' he said, clasping Lupin briefly and rather foolishly at the shoulder, given the way Lupin's jaw tightened furiously. With that, the Minister departed.

'Fat fool,' Harry was quite sure he heard Scrimgeour mutter, but then the Chief Auror was crooking a finger at Lupin. 'You, sir,' he said, 'why don't you come with me, and we'll discuss what might be done to lure Sirius Black back into the open.'

'Remus,' Tonks said, and extended a wand. 'This belongs to you.'

Lupin took it. He ran a finger down its length. He turned to Harry, then, taking six hurried steps to Harry's bedside, to shake his hand. Under that cover, Lupin bent his head near, and whispered, 'It was never just because of an oath, Harry. Believe that. But I will protect you. With all my soul.'

'Sir,' Harry began, but Lupin released him just as quickly as he'd seized Harry's hand, and turned back to the two Aurors who stood waiting with Snape.

'Let's go,' Lupin said, and led the way out of the infirmary.


	21. The Diamond Soul

_In Which The Past Transforms The Future._

'My name,' said the smiling old man, 'is Nicolas Flamel. And you would be Harry Potter.'

They shook. Harry wouldn't have thought it to look at him, but Mr Flamel had a strong grip. His hands looked young, with smooth, firm skin. There were rims of yellow under his nails, though, like Professor Snape had from brewing potions all day. His salt-and-pepper goatee was stained yellow around the mouth, as well.

'You're the man on the chocolate frog card,' Harry said.

Flamel laughed softly at this. 'I've got a few of me in my collection, as it happens. I'll sign one for you, if you'll sign yours for me.'

Harry stared. 'There's a chocolate frog card of _me_?'

'Very rare- limited edition, actually. Issued for the first anniversary of your defeat of Voldemort.'

'I was baby,' Harry said flatly, suddenly exhausted. 'I didn't do anything.'

That stood awkwardly between them a moment. Flamel recovered his good manners faster than Harry. He removed his long cape and draped it over Dumbledore's chair, set his hat and gloves atop it, straightening his long white collar. 'Ah,' he said then, nodding. 'And this little creature would be Fawkes, wouldn't he. I haven't seen him in a rebirth cycle for, oh, going on two hundred years.'

Fawkes had recovered somewhat from his immolation and rebirth. He was still small, about the size of a quail, and his feathers were more brown than the glorious scarlet and gold they had been when Harry had first met him, but Fawkes seemed happy enough and energetic, too. He shuffled on tiny grasping claws up and down Harry's arms, scaling Harry's shoulders and investigating Harry's hair with a questing beak, chirruping into Harry's ears. He allowed Flamel to stroke his crest and feed him a cracker, but made his preference for Harry clear.

Dumbledore's office felt strangely empty, even with the three of them in there. The big desk with the throne-like chair was threateningly still. The silver instruments that lined the shelves moved, now and then, but even they seemed lethargic. All the portraits were empty. It was only dinner time, but it felt like midnight. Even the light was dim, tired. No-one had been in to tell Harry anything all evening, and he fretted under that blanket of silence. They had moved Harry out of hospital because a fourth year had come in with symptoms of dragon pox, and Madam Pomfrey had determined it warranted testing all Ravenclaw House for contimination. Who exactly had made the decision Harry should relocate to Dumbledore's office was unclear to him, but he'd only been alone for a half hour when the door had opened, and a man in funny short britches and a tall hat like a wide-brimmed bucket had come in, smiling genially.

'I understand you had quite the adventure,' Mr Flamel murmured now. 'And also that you don't recall it. At least not in its entirety.'

'No, sir.'

'I thought perhaps you might like to see it for yourself. As it were. Harry- may I call you Harry?' Flamel waited for his nod. 'Have you heard of something called a Pensieve?'

'I don't think so.' Fawkes rubbed his head against Harry's cheek. Nudging him to the left. Harry turned his head obligingly. Toward the tall cabinet with the stone basin, and all the little phials.

'A Pensieve is a magical tool used in a very specific kind of spell. There is something called immersive magic: it's directed inside, to change the wizard's perspective, to allow the wizard to think and see and feel in new ways, rather than directing a spell outward and changing something else. A Pensieve is a self-contained environment for that kind of magic.' Flamel paused. 'Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'A little,' Harry said, small-voiced.

Flamel seemed to believe that meant not at all, because he began again. 'The Pensieve is that bowl in the cupboard,' he said, rising to cross the floor. He invited Harry to join him with a beckoning gesture, and drew up a stool to the podium so Harry could see over the rim. The bowl had liquid in it- or, well, a kind of liquid, or maybe a kind of light. It all swirled together. 'Textbooks will tell you that a Pensieve allows you to view a memory, but the truth is more complex. What a Pensieve truly does is immerse you in an experience, but with a richness of perspective you could never achieve alone. It is not merely a remembering. It's even more than an a re-living. The Pensieve allows you to examine every detail of an experience.' Flamel looked at Harry for a long time, weighing something silently. Harry, unsure what Flamel wanted from him, tried to just meet his eyes. He didn't know what Flamel saw when he looked at Harry, but it didn't seem to be the right things.

'Imagine your room,' Flamel said suddenly.

'My dorm?'

'Not your dormitory here. Your room at home.'

Harry dropped his eyes immediately. He didn't know if Flamel could do the thing Dumbledore and Snape did, look into his eyes and see things. No-one had said anything yet about Crowhill, and Harry didn't know if that was still a secret.

'It's all right,' Flamel told him gently. 'I am no Legilimens, but even if I were, this is only an example, to help you grasp what we're going to do. Close your eyes. Picture your room.'

Fawkes had found the end of the ear piece of Harry's glasses, buried in his hair, and attacked it with rigour. Harry solved that distraction by plucking the phoenix from his shoulder and dropping him into the side pocket of his robe. Flamel chuckled at this, the last thing Harry saw before he closed his eyes firmly. Picture his room. Well, that was easy. Every room in Crowhill was alike. Plaster walls in the same yellowish beige. They had a window with one cracked pane and peeling grout. And the three beds, two bunked and one single. He wondered if Gaz and Marcus were still there. Gaz had been at Crowhill for three years, Marcus two, and at Harry's age weren't likely to be adopted out, but they might have been sent off to fosters.

'Think about all the small details,' Flamel said. 'Carpet or wood?'

'Wood,' Harry answered, and bit his lip, but couldn't see how anything so general was giving much away. He'd just think before he answered again.

'What colour is the wood? Dark, light?'

'Umm, just regular brown.'

'Does it have variations in tone? Are the planks long or short? Are they nailed or glued?'

'Er...'

'What about your duvet?'

'Blue.' He added the detail before Flamel could request it. 'Just plain blue, well, with a stripe going lengthwise. Light blue.'

'The quality of the stitching?'

Harry's eyes popped open, but Flamel made a little circular motion with his hands, to continue imagining. 'I don't know,' Harry said. 'You mean is it getting worn or is it new?'

'I don't mean how old it is- that's knowledge you have from a source other than observation. Try to remember it solely from interacting with it every day. Is there a loose thread? A snag? A hem coming unsewn?'

'I... I can't remember.'

'Well, it has been a little while, hasn't it. Try to picture me, now. Describe me.'

It was unexpectedly hard. 'Grey hair,' Harry said. 'Um, to your shoulders? Not as tall as Dumbledore, but taller than Professor McGonagall. You don't wear a robe, or not a robe like the ones here, it's shorter and you have stockings and shoes with big brass buckles and a white collar like the Puritans.'

'Not bad, for a mere quarter hour's acquaintance. What colour are my eyes?'

Harry couldn't remember. 'Blue?'

'See for yourself.'

Harry checked. Not even a little blue. They were brown, like his robe, and his hair wasn't really grey, either, more a mix of black and white. And he didn't have a whole beard, like Dumbledore, which went all the way up the sides of his face to meet his hair. Flamel's came to a little point just below his chin and was well trimmed to match the lines swooping from his nose to his mouth.

Those lines deepened a moment, as Flamel smiled again. 'You see the faults of relying on human memory,' he said. He touched the edge of the basin. 'The Pensieve is capable of plunging you back into a place or time as if you were fully living in it. You could see, touch, even smell your own bedsheets, or stand face to face with someone half-forgotten from your past.'

'Why would you want to do that?'

'What do you think?' Flamel returned. 'How might that be useful?'

Well. For starters- 'But I don't properly remember it,' Harry said. 'So if we wanted to see my memory of what Qu- my- the DADA professor did, or what I did for him I mean, we can't see my memory anyway.'

'Ah. In the usual course of things this would be true. However, you do, in fact, have a memory of it; it's just been buried. That which is buried can be retrieved. And I believe Albus retrieved all that could be gotten by means of Legilimency. What we have available is second-hand, but relatively complete.' Flamel lifted a bottle from the shelf. It had no label, unlike most of the others, just a swirling substance of silvery hue filling it almost to the cork. 'Would you like to? Use the Pensieve to see exactly what, as you say, your erstwhile professor did?'

'But I wouldn't just be viewing it. I'd be experiencing it.'

'Yes.'

'It won't... it won't hurt? Or be dangerous? If it's happening all over again?'

'The you of the present will not be harmed. You will be a witness only. No harms that have already happened can be undone within a Pensieve, but you will be safe from their repetition.' Flamel uncorked the phial and dripped the silver liquid into the bowl. It began to swirl about, agitated beneath even as the filmy surface stayed flat as a mirror. 'I will go with you, if I may,' Flamel questioned softly.

Did he want to know? Harry wasn't entirely sure that he did. But the not-knowing had been eating at him for hours, and if he knew, he could do something about it.

'Then follow me,' Flamel said, and bent over the basin to dip his head in.

Wizards. Some things, Harry thought, there was just no getting used to. With a mental shrug, Harry sucked in a breath and plunged his head into the bowl.

It wasn't like sticking his head into water. Harry had been shoved head-first in a few toilets in his time at Crowhill. Some of Hogwarts students swam in a carefully cordoned area of the Black Lake- guaranteed to be free of the giant squid, kappas, grindylows, and merpeople through an ancient treaty, Harry had learnt that in Professor Burbage's Muggleborn Integration sessions- but Harry couldn't swim and anyway hadn't been tempted to learn surrounded by all of that. Fortunately, there was no paddling required for the Pensieve. As soon as he'd broken the surface he was falling, not floating. And only falling for just long enough to realise it was happening. Then he'd landed, crumpling, unprepared, onto the cold floor of his dormitory.

Nicolas Flamel helped him to his feet. 'We won't disturb them,' he murmured, walking Harry to a bed where- where Harry himself lay, sleeping fitfully. 'What do you notice?'

'Are we on the outside because it's Dumbledore's memory, not mine?'

'Clever,' Flamel nodded. 'No. It's a condition of the Pensieve, of immersive magic.'

Harry looked at his own face, feeling uneasy. He had seen himself plenty of times in a mirror, obviously, but it was different, a living, breathing version of himself. The scar on his forehead was livid, and his eyes were open a little, a slit of green showing beneath fluttering eyelashes that clumped with wet. He didn't look at all well from the outside. A quick glance confirmed he hadn't waked the others, at least. Ron was snoring, Dean had curled up in his customary twist of sheeting and pillows, Neville was face-down in a growing stain of drool, and Seamus had somehow flipped so that his head was at the footboard, legs akimbo. The fire in the grate had gone to just glowing embers. It was either very late or very early.

And then the door opened. It swung on creaking hinges- Harry was well familiar with that sound, whenever any of the boys came sneaking back from a pee in the middle of the night- but a hand stopped it just as it began to whinge, and eased it just wide enough to admit a body. Though not especially tall, it was too large to be a student. It was Professor Quirrell. He stood there, his hood drawn even in the dark, over the sleeping Harry, and said, very softly, 'Wake up, Harry.'

Nicolas Flamel touched Harry's shoulder- real Harry, not Memory-Harry. 'It may be disconcerting,' he warned Harry.

Harry didn't know what disconcerting meant, but it certainly felt very peculiar. He watched his double, his past self, come wide awake immediately, and sit up with jerky movements, stiff-limbed. The man in the hood handed him his clothes, and his shoes, and Memory-Harry dressed himself, but for some reason didn't reach for his invisibility cloak, packed away in his trunk and ready for sneaking. They walked out of the dorm together, Memory-Harry and the man, and Harry followed before he wondered if you could even leave a dream- memory- a room that wasn't really there. It seemed he could. He slipped out the door after himself, and heard Nicolas Flamel following, too.

And so he watched, a step behind, as the memory of himself and the memory of a man who must be Professor Quirrell went to the banned third-storey corridor and through a series of strange challenges that took place in room after room. Like the wizarding space of Mr Lupin's house in Beddgelert, Harry could see that these rooms couldn't possibly really fit inside Hogwarts, at least not in the way they were doing- that drop between the room with the three-headed dog into the one with the Devil's Snare was two storeys at least, and he knew the Great Hall was beneath them, not a cave with a troll and a huge vaulted arena as big as the Quidditch Pitch full of nine-foot tall chessmen.

'I tried to warn people,' Harry said. 'I told Dumbledore. I tried to tell Snape.'

'It can be very difficult to learn that someone you've trusted is menacing a place you've counted safe beyond infiltration.'

Harry glanced away from his memory-self agonising over the potions puzzle. Flamel stroked his beard thoughtfully, but when he looked down at Harry his eyes seemed sad. 'You mean the war,' Harry guessed.

'There is always a war, my child. When Dumbledore has lived long enough for wisdom, he will understand.'

'Isn't Dumbledore very old?'

Flamel laughed softly. 'No spring lamb, our Albus, but he has a ways to travel yet to achieve "very" old.'

'How old are you, sir?'

'Old enough to know that very little actually changes,' Flamel replied, and nodded as Memory-Harry solved the riddle, drank the potion, and plunged through the flames.

The last room was a place full of treasures, a cave actually, but one so big Harry could hardly believe Hogwarts stood atop it on the surface. There was wizarding money, lots of gold Galleons, jewellery and antiques and clearly magical artefacts to tempt an intruder with a greedy nature. Quirrell didn't look at any of it, which struck Harry as strange. To not even look around and see what else might be valuable? In fact Quirrell even walked right past the cabinet with a bowl Harry now knew was Pensieve, stacked with dozens of bottles of memories that might be important- 'Hold up,' he said, stopping in his tracks, 'that's Professor Dumbledore's Pensieve, isn't it? The one we're in right now?'

'Correct.'

Quirrell must have known what it was, then. Teachers would be in and out of Dumbledore's office all the time. Maybe Quirrell wouldn't be fussed over gemstones or that sort of thing, but Dumbledore had all manner of important, invaluable things in his office. Harry dropped a hand to his pocket, where Fawkes could nip his fingers. 'Reckon you wouldn't be surprised what's in the Mirror if you already know you don't care about all this,' Harry muttered.

'Indeed.'

They hovered over the shoulders of the two kneeling before the Mirror. Memory-Harry reached for the softly glowing surface without hesitation, as Quirrell stared hungrily at him. They had come prepared. Memory-Harry took a stone from Quirrell, and touched it to the glass. His hand flattened as the stone pushed through, but a different stone came back out again. He handed it over to Quirrell with a soft sigh.

'Play back,' Flamel said, and Harry jumped as everything re-wound like a video tape. This time, they watched from the front as Harry came through the flames into the cave, Quirrell a step behind, and came walking right up to the Mirror. Quirrell didn't even glance aside at the Pensieve or any of the other things that lay enticingly at hand. He was almost thrumming with eagerness, his lips drawn back from his face in a grimace of triumph. His sweaty face gleamed in the blue light of the Mirror as they neared it.

'What do you see?'

'I don't know what he sees. I don't remember.'

'I know. But what do _you_ see? Now, looking into the Mirror?'

'It's... it's only a memory, isn't it? The Mirror won't work for me.'

'Ah. We shall see, I think. But magic, Harry, magic obeys its own rules. Would you look in the Mirror for me?'

'Dumbledore said not to. He said it was dangerous.'

'I will be here to aid you, if it should be necessary. If not me, trust your friend.'

'My friend?'

Fawkes nipped at his hand again. Harry tugged him out of his pocket, careful of his wings, and lifted Fawkes to his shoulder. The phoenix rubbed his crest on Harry's cheek, burbling in the way he did sometimes so that he almost sounded like he was talking. Harry wished he would. He would have liked some advice right now.

With extreme reluctance, Harry looked at the Mirror. It wasn't that he didn't want to see them again... he wanted it more than he'd ever wanted anything. And there they were, waiting for him, just as they'd been at Christmas; his mum and his dad, exactly the same. Exactly the same forever, the way they were in his photographs. They would never get old like Dumbledore or Nicolas Flamel. One day even Harry would be older than they'd been when they died. That thought was agony to him. It would have been a wonderful thing to get the Philospher's Stone for himself- they could all have been together, then, because Voldemort wouldn't have been able to kill them.

But Voldemort had. And Harry had learnt a long time ago not to wish for things he couldn't have. He had more of his parents now than he ever had before Lupin had told him the truth about the Wizarding World. He'd even seen them, thanks to the Mirror. Harry would always have that, even if it wasn't really them. He'd known them for a little while, at least, and he wouldn't give that up for anything.

A strange kind of contentment came to him then. It was true. He'd had more of them, thanks to the Mirror, than he would ever have had otherwise. It wasn't as good as having had them always, but he couldn't change any of it, and he wouldn't spend his life longing for something he would never have. They wouldn't want him to.

Harry looked into the Mirror, and, to his great surprise, found himself looking back. Just Harry. His parents had gone. Mirror-Harry smiled, rather sadly, and put his hand into his pocket. He took out a stone, and offered it.

Flamel was watching the real Harry very keenly. 'What do you see?' he asked quietly, as Memory-Harry leant forward, once again, to take the offered stone from Mirror-Harry.

But Memory-Harry wasn't fast enough. Real-Harry reached over his shoulder, and took it first.

Flamel was staring with his eyes starting out of his head. His mouth flapped, a moment, then, convulsively, he seized the stone from Harry. 'Mon Dieu,' he whispered. 'You are a marvel, young sir. A great working of soul and a great working of magic alike.'

Memory-Harry seemed to have frozen, empty-handed. With Flamel occupied in studying the stone, only Real-Harry noticed: Quirrell turned to face them. His eyes glinted red in the shadow of his hood. And he was looking directly at Harry.

'End play,' Flamel said, and touched Harry on the shoulder. 'We have what we came for, Harry. Let's go.'

There was a reverse-falling feeling, almost like flying backward in a great suck of wind. And then Harry was pulling his head out of the Pensieve, Fawkes flapping off Harry's shoulder and tumbling before Harry could catch him an inch from the hard stone floor. He carried Fawkes back to his perch, setting him in the bowl with a few crackers for company.

Dumbledore said, 'I presume you learnt enough to form a hypothesis, old friend?'

Harry jumped. The Headmaster was at his desk, though he stood behind it, not yet sitting, as if he'd just arrived. There was a black-robed man in a portrait at his left shoulder, whispering softly. Dumbledore nodded at whatever he'd said.

'More than a hypothesis.' Flamel stood at the Pensieve still with hands cradling something. His voice emerged hushed, and there was a look of wonder on his face. 'Albus. This is... this is...' He showed Dumbledore his palms. Dumbledore's eyes widened, and then his head whipped about so fast his hat slipped. He wasn't as fast as Harry. It hit the floor with a little fwap.

'Harry Potter,' Dumbledore said.

'I didn't do it,' Harry blurted, the automatic defence of a boy long used to what came after hearing his full name spoken like that. That tone heralded demerits, detentions, disaster.

'But he did,' Flamel told the Headmaster eagerly. 'He did, and you know what this means.'

'Plurp,' chirped Fawkes, and flung a bit of biscuit at the back of Harry's head.

'The Diamond Soul,' Dumbledore whispered.


	22. Who Daur Bell The Cat?

_In Which Confession Saves A Soul._

'There have always been,' said Nicolas Flamel, 'men more given to concerning themselves with what they can see, or touch, or hear for themselves- and men more concerned with what cannot be seen.'

'You mean magic,' Harry guessed.

'You will find, Harry, that magic does not gift most people with extraordinary sensibility. Even in the Wizarding World there are few who see magic as anything other than a learned skill on par with, say, cookery or sport. Say a few words, swish a wand a time or two, make life a little easier here or there; but no. Most witches and wizards do not live their lives in any substantial way differently than Muggles. Oh, I know, Albus, you needn't raise your brow at me. It's not a popular sentiment, what I've just expressed,' Flamel told Harry with a wry smile. 'But tell me, young sir. Which would you prefer for getting about- the Floo or an auto?'

'You mean a car?' Harry rotated his mug of steaming pumpkin juice between hands that felt frozen. 'Well... for speed, I reckon the Floo's much faster, but a car's loads more comfortable, and you're not all over ash besides.'

'Indeed. What about a broom or an aeroplane?'

'Well... a broom,' Harry said, abashed to find both old men waiting on his answer. 'But I've never been on a plane, or really anywhere you couldn't get on a bus til recently. But-'

'But?' Flamel prompted him.

'Well- not all witches and wizards fly, do they? Or they wouldn't have things like the Express. And Muggles have trains, too, and faster ones, like speed trains and they run on electricity, not steam. And I love Quidditch, but sitting on a broom that long is, er, not comfortable.' Harry blushed- he was not prepared to admit to these gentlemen that all the Quidditch teams put aside their natural competition when it came to sharing secrets for dealing with chafing, groin injuries, and the occasional splinter in private places.

'Excellent. Quite my point. Muggles are fearsomely inventive, specially in this modern age. They have quite outpaced the Wizarding World in some ways. They carry telephones in their pockets and use satellites in the ether to phone instantly round the world whilst we rely on owls. They have entire libraries of information available at the click of a button, to be read on demand on the smallest of screens which perform the most complex of mathematical equations faster than a human can think them, but wizards still use a printing press and rely on magic to prop up our houses, not engineering. And in the realm of warcraft, for you can be sure that both wizards and Muggles are at their most creative when it comes to war, even an army of wizards can cause nothing like the damage of an atomic bomb.'

'I fear you are wandering afield, old friend,' murmured Dumbledore.

'Merely refusing to be rushed, Albus. My point is that wizards have grown complacent. Magic is a tool which ensures workaday success, but it has become a crutch where once it was a goal in and of itself, and Wizarding Society stagnates.'

'Stag-' Harry repeated.

'Declines,' Flamel explained shortly. 'Deteriorates. Ceases any new development. The Wizarding World is much as it has been for the last century- more, in all truth. And for a substantial time before that I was able to move throughout the Wizarding World much as I did the world into which I was born centuries ago. Perhaps it is too much to ask, that wizards raise themselves above mediocrity and strive for more, but I ask you, Albus, what are the accomplishments of this age? Even our monsters have grown petty. Grindelwald sought supremacy, but only of an earthly kind. Voldemort, ah, at least he took an interest in magic, though never for its own sake. He did great things once- terrible, but great- but only in pursuit of such a small, unimportant thing. Temporal power passes away. Only Divine Power is everlasting. And that, Master Harry, brings me to you.'

'I'm not anyone's master,' Harry said, squirming a bit at this. It was almost like when the house elves called him Master- with a little bit of awe and far too much deference. Flamel had been doing it ever since they'd come out of the Pensieve.

'That does not mean you are master of nothing,' Flamel murmured cryptically.

Dumbledore set aside the silver instrument with which he'd been examining the small red stone on his desk. It joined a growing pile of instruments the Headmaster had summoned from his shelves and used in a lengthy panto of tests and experiments and spells that seemed far more complex than anything Harry had ever seen. The first had looked like a monocle attached to a wrist watch attached to a PEZ dispenser that had puffed out little balls of smoke, not candy pellets. The second resembled one of the microscopes in the Science class at Crowhill; Harry had used it once to look at a specimen of pond scum, jostling with Najid for his full turn staring in awe at the remarkable alien life forms swimming leisurely across the slide. Dumbledore's magic microscope made beeps and whistles that had Fawkes climbing Harry's shoulders in mad curiosity, scolding the microscope with an impatient screech when it wouldn't respond properly to his inquiring chirps. The third instrument had been just a tube, about the size of a scroll, with little bits that rotated and slid about at the push of a finger, and Dumbledore had spent nearly a quarter hour doing nothing but making obscure adjustments to it with a frown on his face. 'You are merely confirming what you already know,' Flamel had told him, when Dumbledore then summoned the fourth piece, a little ring-box with a flip lid which bent back to reveal a dial of blackest obsidian. Dumbledore had been twisting it this way and that, his expression growing ever darker. Harry had never seen the Headmaster in such a strop- there was no twinkle at all in the blue eyes now, only a heavy and helpless frustration.

Except when he looked at Harry. The Headmaster didn't, actually, look at Harry- at least not purposefully. Sometimes, as if he couldn't stop himself, he'd glance sidelong. He did it again, now, and sat back in his chair with his hands falling limply to the arms of his chair. He said nothing at all.

'Do you know anything about the Philosopher's Stone, Master Harry?'

Harry strained to recall all Hermione had told him. He regretted interrupting her quite so much; he'd been far too focussed on the wondering why someone would try to steal it part, and far less on the what it was good for part. 'It's for alchemy,' he answered tentatively. 'Which is like potions but not, and it's for making gold and for making people immortal, I think.'

'Ah. Not quite. He who possesses the Philosopher's Stone possesses Truth, which is the greatest of all treasures; and he who possesses Truth is therefore rich beyond the calculation of man, because Truth heals Ignorance- the most loathsome of all diseases. To be healed of Ignorance is to achieve perfect Reason, and to achieve perfect Reason is to overcome death, because Reason frees the soul from the needs of the body.' Flamel paused, and Harry tried to wipe his expression of the confusion he felt. Flamel said, more slowly, 'The quest to transmute base metals to gold was a harmless enough occupation for Muggles who believed the process could be achieved without magic, which of course can conjure gold at will- though anything conjured is not truly matter transformed, only moulded for a purpose, but that is for another discussion. When I was a young man I yearned, as many young men do, for riches, for courtly station, for land and power. I pursued the art of alchemy with unmatched rigour. I sought every alchemist in Europe, I even joined the Crusade against the Ottomans to travel to the East and study with their prophets. I was the most single-minded of creatures, you see, and I pledged my very soul in the balance. Then, one day... pfft.' He snapped his fingers. 'Gold,' he said. 'Gold, from lead. That most innocuous of things. I had everything I had worked so very hard for- and I had given up everything else.'

Harry knew about as much about the Crusades as he did about alchemy, but he knew they were a long time ago in the mediaeval era, which rather brought home, suddenly, how old Nicolas Flamel must really be. Harry swallowed dryly. 'Given up everything else?' he echoed, to show he was listening, though he could hardly absorb a word of it. It was all terribly overwhelming. And Dumbledore still wouldn't look at Harry. The Headmaster sat stone-faced as a statute in his chair, and if he listened at all there was no sign of it.

'My mother and father had died many years before. I had never married, nor even loved. I had no friends, and even my fellow scholars cared little for me, as I had cared little for them, obsessed only with what knowledge they could impart to me. I had achieved my life's goal, but I had no-one to share it with. I became very bitter. I was very lost, young sir, if you can imagine that. Even my new wealth brought me little pleasure. What are earthly riches when you are alone? I believe I would have taken my own life in despair, if not for a miracle.'

'I didn't know wizards believed in miracles,' Harry said. There was no religion at all at Hogwarts, and even Mo Milai on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, whose Muggle dad was Muslim, had grown up Wizarding and never gone to mosque at all. No-one talked about God or any of that, and Harry supposed if you had magic for everything then nothing was really all that miraculous.

'Perhaps they do, perhaps they do not,' Flamel nodded. 'Myself, I am not a wizard.'

Harry's jaw dropped. 'You're a Muggle?'

'Our communities were not always so separate as they are now. I had become very nearly a hermit, you see, neither properly unmagical nor properly magical, unwelcome and suspected in both worlds. At first, I only glimpsed my miracle through the windowpane of my lonely garret. I saw her every week, visiting the apothecary. She was nothing extraordinary, only a pretty girl, but something woke in me that had been long smothered out. I would watch for her every week, memorising every detail of her aspect, her veil, her dress, her walk. I might have been content with this, to dream of her from afar forever, but one day, as if she felt my eyes on her, she looked up. She met my eyes. And I was saved.'

'You fell in love with her.' Hermione would be sighing wistfully. Harry couldn't imagine feeling that way about anyone, not really. Excepting, well, maybe he could. After all, he knew how he'd felt when he'd first seen pictures of his parents. It wasn't getting-married kind of love, but it had made him whole again when he hadn't even known he'd been broken.

'Yes,' Flamel whispered, nodding as if he understood perfectly. 'Yes, I knew you must have felt it yourself. Her name was Perenelle. She was a witch, of an ancient Pureblood line, but she was gravely ill. When I grew brave enough to ask the apothecary about his weekly visitor, he told me of the blood curse against her family- wizarding families feuded, in those days, for generations at a time, and dark magic destroyed hundreds of innocent lives over forgotten insults. The blood curse had set upon my beautiful Perenelle at the instant of her fourteenth birthday, destroying her womb first and spreading slowly to her heart. She would die of it, slowly, painfully, as had her sisters and mother. Magic had mortally wounded her and could not save her. When I heard these words, when I imagined her dead and cold in the ground, every fibre of my being blazed in revolt. No. I would not let her die.'

'What... what did you do?'

'I scoured all the many books I had collected on my travels,' Flamel answered, with a Gallic shrug of his hands. 'I wrote to the scholars I had studied with in my quest to perfect alchemy and bent their minds toward this curse. I sought every sage, every mystic, every wizard I could consult. I even travelled to England to meet with Heloise Hufflepuff, the great-granddaughter of Helga, a founder of this very school, but even that renowned healer could only tell me what I already knew. There was no cure. So I gave up on cures and began to look for other means to extend Perenelle's life. And in my desperate searching I found that what I needed, I already had. The Philosopher's Stone.'

Harry's eyes were drawn to the stone on Dumbledore's desk. He pressed his damp palms together.

'You might imagine my horror,' Flamel said, 'when I realised I had been foolishly chipping away at the stone for years to make something as unimportant as gold.'

'Chipping away at it?'

'Yes. I was grinding it up, you see, as one of a dozen ingredients in my potions. Many of the ancient arts used magical artefacts as such- we did not know the means to extract their potency, so we used direct, and destructive, methods. The amount I had left was much reduced from the generous brick I had brought with me from the caverns of Nicopolis in the last years of the fourteenth century. If I would succeed, and I must succeed, I would have to preserve what was left at all costs. This work consumed my every waking hour for a full year, and with every hour I knew Perenelle's pain as my own. Every shuddering heartbeat brought us closer to the moment when all would be lost. I raged. I wept. I burnt my notes and began again, and again, and again- all for naught. The secret was lost to man.

'The night before Perenelle's eighteenth birthday, I sat with her alone. She was lost to her pain, a wraith only clinging for a few more hours to a most wretched existence. She had been orphaned by this curse, abandoned by what remained of her family, and I was the only one with her as she shuddered out her last. How cruel a world, I thought. How cruelly indifferent that such a light should be snuffed out and the world would go on anyway. I had the Stone in my hand- that Stone, young sir, that Stone which had brought me no happiness except for one thing: the first and greatest love of my life. And I felt gratitude. I had known Perenelle, if only this little time, and I would not have given that up for all the gold in the universe. Love had transmuted me, you see, and I was most profoundly changed.'

'Yes,' Harry said, 'yes, exactly.'

Flamel pressed his hands together, the tips of his fingers resting against his smiling lips. 'Yes,' he agreed softly. 'Yes, exactly.'

'Perfect love,' Dumbledore said.

Harry jumped. He'd been so caught up he'd forgot, for a moment anyway, that Dumbledore was even there.

'The Philosopher's Stone is perfect love,' Nicolas Flamel told Harry. 'It transmutes all that is base and raises all that is dead. And that is why you were able to take it from the Mirror of Erised.'

'Me- but- how?' Harry stuttered. 'I still don't understand.'

'I placed stringent conditions upon the Mirror,' Dumbledore explained, and his eyes opened at last, looking steely. He had settled something within himself, and his hands curled with new strength over the lions' heads on the arms of his chair, his shoulders straightening. 'Only one who wanted the Stone but did not want to use it could retrieve it. I knew that Quirinus Quirrell- yes, Harry, thanks to your warnings, and to Professor Snape, who suspected as you did- would be unable to meet those conditions. I did not believe that anyone could, including myself and Nicolas. In effect, the Stone had been placed out of reach forever.'

'But then Quir-' The headache. He'd almost forgot about it in all the fuss. He gritted his teeth against the stabbing pain in his scar and forced it out. 'Rrrrrll has it. Has the Stone.'

'But he does not,' Dumbledore said, turning a palm up and gesturing elegantly to the stone on his desk. 'For here it sits.'

'How? That second time was only a memory.'

'The Diamond Soul.'

They were going in circles. Harry rubbed at his sore head, feeling oppressive exhaustion dragging him to a low ebb again. He wanted nothing so much as a good long sleep and no more surprises. 'I don't know what that means,' he said. 'Or why you hate that I have it or whatever it is you think.'

'I do not hate it,' Dumbledore said very quietly. 'If it is true, it is a thing of great wonder. If it is true, however, then I must also feel great fear for you.'

'Fear?' Harry gulped. 'Why? Is it- is it a curse, like that blood curse Mr Flamel-'

'It is nothing so substantial as that. It is merely a very esoteric name for a concept- an idea, or, more accurately, a belief. It is called the Philosopher's Stone, Harry, because philosophy is itself nothing more than a way of searching for something. Answers. Wisdom. Truth. Love. To the mystics, the Philosopher's Stone is itself purest love. The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. Only one who has scrubbed his soul of all corrosion- one who has polished his being free of corruption- can call the Stone to him. Only one with a Diamond Soul.'

'Then...' Harry dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. 'Then he was never going to be able to get it, so why hide it at all?'

'It can still be used,' Flamel explained gently. 'I myself used it for years before I discovered its true purpose. What Dark magic he may perform on it- with it- I shudder even to imagine.'

'What was the other stone? The one I traded in the Mirror for this?'

'If I am correct, and I think I must be, it was carved from the very cavern where I first took the rock which eventually became the Stone. It has manifest magical properties, and is alike enough to the real Stone that the spells Albus placed on the Mirror accepted the exchange.'

'Then he couldn't have just made his own Stone? Oh,' Harry realised, looking up to find Flamel nodding along. 'Because he doesn't have the Diamond Soul? But he was doing it for someone else, too. For his Master.'

Dumbledore sat forward slowly. 'His Master, yes.'

In every dream Harry had had, Quirrell had spoken to someone he called his master. Quirrell had been with his Master in the Forbidden Forest that day they'd killed the unicorn- 'The unicorn,' Harry said. 'Quirrell and his Master killed the unicorn.'

'This is true?' Flamel wondered with shock. 'You had not mentioned this, Albus.'

'But one of many strange events this year, old friend,' Dumbledore replied, but he stroked thoughtfully at his beard, and he was frowning again. 'Yes, a unicorn was murdered, and its blood spilt. Young Master Harry here stumbled upon the crime in its commission.'

'But this- this cannot be- calculated,' Flamel protested, throwing up his hands. 'How is it possible to imagine the effect of Darkest intent on a Stone which- Albus, this is madness. If he uses the Stone now, there is no predicting what he may become!'

Harry's mouth dried like a desert dune. He tried to lick his lips, tongue sticking to his gums. 'I,' he rasped. 'I... I touched the unicorn blood.'

Flamel froze in place with wide eyes. Dumbledore twisted his beard about the tip of his finger, and said nothing.

An old witch popped into the frame of a portrait behind the Headmaster's desk. 'Albus!' she gasped, bending over her knees with heaving breaths. 'Albus, that young man they sent into the Forest is back. The Order is calling for you, and the Chief Auror is on his way back. Ohhh. Ran all the way here, I did.'

Dumbledore stood. 'Unless you have any more secrets to share, Mr Potter, I believe now is a good time to pause-'

'I know Professor Lupin,' Harry said in a very small voice.

To his surprise, Dumbledore only chuckled. 'Oh, Harry,' he said ruefully, and smiled at last.

* * *

 _'Enervate,'_ pronounced Madam Pomfrey, sweeping her wand the length of Lupin's prone form. He heaved a huge gasp, eyes springing wide open. He stared without recognition at the Order, all hovering over him, til at last his frantic gaze settled on Harry, tucked away against the wall beside Nicolas Flamel. Lupin relaxed at last, slumping limp in relief.

'Is he all righ'?' Hagrid demanded, wringing his coracle-sized flatcap between two ham-sized fists. 'Only when I seen the centaurs there in the Forest I knew somethin' had gone wrong, they always left 'im alone before.'

'I'm fine,' Lupin croaked.

'He will be,' Pomfrey allowed grudgingly, though she added a stern, 'With about a week's worth of bedrest. Your core is dangerously overstimulated.'

'There's nothing I can do about that til the full-' Lupin's eyes, a weary slit of pale yellow, sought Harry's again. 'Til these current circumstances have passed,' he said. He shoved himself upright, swaying even that short distance. He gripped the edges of the cot with white knuckles.

'If you're quite well enough,' Scrimgeour prompted impatiently, 'can we please get on with the details?'

The Chief Auror appeared to have thrown on his red robes of office in some haste. He still wore a dinner napkin tucked into his shirt collar beneath the open robe. Curiously, he was not the only one who looked as though he'd been interrupted at other business. There was reddish mud caked to Bill Weasley's boots that hadn't been there this morning. There was a bit of spiderweb in Tonks's hair, and creases of dust on her sleeves; Harry was overly familiar with forgotten attics and gungy corners from Cleaning Duty at Crowhill, and knew the sight of someone who'd been poking away in places they hadn't ought to have been. Elphias Doge, whom Hermione admired so much, had appeared bearing a wobbly stack of books and scrolls from the library. Kingsley Shacklebolt was splitting his attention between Lupin and an antique handmirror encrusted with porcelain roses painted garish violet. Snape was there, too, but none of the other House Heads. Harry wondered briefly at his presence, but forgot about him when Lupin gagged a little, sending everyone skittering back a step. Only Pomfrey offered a basin and a kerchief. Lupin spat red.

'Do you need a moment, sir?' Bill asked with oddly strained formality. 'A bit of space, we could clear out-'

'I'm fine. It's normal this time of the month.' Pomfrey attacked Lupin with potion-smeared cotton gauze, scrubbing the blood away from his neck. Lupin closed his eyes and let her.

'Get to the point, Lupin,' Scrimgeour said dangerously.

'Of course, sir. Sirius should have Quirrell in custody for you within a day or two.'

A few mouths dropped open. Dumbledore, apparently lost in thought as he had been since they'd left his office, hummed to himself.

Tonks cracked a grin, though. 'All right, the whole story, not just the conclusion,' she said.

'You're not too old for a solid whipping over my knee, Mr Lupin,' Scrimgeour warned. 'I've been plenty patient with your attitude. Now I would appreciate that respect returned.'

Lupin gazed down at his hands for a long time. Pomfrey had finished the scratches she could readily see and helped herself to a peer down the back of Lupin's shirt, clucking and applying her gauze with her usual brisk rigour. 'Poppy,' Lupin sighed, craning his head away from her. 'Why didn't he have a trial?' Lupin asked abruptly.

'That old canard,' Scrimgeour dismissed him, though Harry, who had turned to look like everyone else, thought Scrimgeour seemed wary. 'He confessed.'

'But he didn't plead guilt in a court trial.'

'Mr Lupin, is this really the time or place?'

'Maybe not, but I think I need to know before I know what to tell you.'

Wary, yes. Wary, and deciding something that seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. 'I have already apologised on behalf of my predecessors once today. Most get no apologies at all.'

'I'm asking is he owed one, as I was?'

'Then I'll ask you: what would a trial change? He would still be condemned.'

'At the very least, he might have given information. He could have identified Death Eaters. Given evidence, testimony.' Lupin paused, but only briefly. His face was hard and cold. 'He could have cleared Regulus.'

Scrimgeour had a retort ready. It died strangled. Snape's head whipped about, his lips parting on a soundless oh. Tonks looked entirely shocked.

'We knew he was trying to get out,' Lupin said. 'Sirius was supposed to meet him. But he said Reg never came, and a week later he was dead. If Sirius had gone on trial, he could have testified that Reg really had turned on Voldemort, and the House of Black would have retained Ancient and Noble status... but that was the point, wasn't it. Families like the Malfoys paid in bribes. The Blacks were easier. All the Ministry had to do was seize their assets. No heir living or free to protest.'

'That,' Scrimgeour said with grim precision, 'is a seditious and slanderous accusation to make in a roomful of witnesses.'

'Only if I'm wrong.' Lupin caught Pomfrey's hand with his own, removing the gauze from her grip. 'I'm all right,' he told her. 'It's only scratches. We had a bit of a chase. He was hiding near an acromantula nest- risky for him, but guaranteed to keep Aurors and the other creatures of the Forest off his tail.'

Harry twitched a bit at that. Sirius did have a tail- when he was a dog. But somehow he didn't think anyone actually knew that Sirius could be a dog. Lupin hadn't directly said it, and neither had anyone else. Lupin hadn't told them.

Hagrid had gone twitchy, too. 'Acromantula?' he repeated, his voice an octave too high.

'We can investigate that later, Hagrid,' Bill whispered, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder.

'Did you find him or did he find you, Mr Lupin?'

'He came to my patronus. I lied, told him I'd done a runner, that you were after me, that I couldn't leave til I knew for myself, all the lines you fed me. Not being an idiot, he didn't believe me. He asked if it was an ambush- he said- he said... just ask him. Just ask him.'

'Ask him what,' Tonks echoed uneasily.

Lupin scrubbed at his eyes, sat with this fists wrapped tight and pressed to his lips. 'Ask him for his help. So I did.'

'Hell and bloody damnation,' Scrimgeour swore, turning away with a slap of rage at the wall. Bill Weasley groaned, shaking his head. Shacklebolt glanced up from his handmirror, his lips thoughtfully pursed.

'He's going to track Quirrell,' Lupin said, overriding their protests. 'I gave him the Bell of Rodilardus. He'll get as close as he can to Quirrell, and set it off to summon us.'

'That Bell was meant to collar Black!' Scrimgeour growled. 'Even if he doesn't betray you and does somehow manage to get close enough to Quirrell to collar him, what's to stop him from doing a real runner the moment he's done?'

'Honour,' Lupin retorted, standing.

'Honour?' Snape interrupted suddenly, the word bursting out of him as if he couldn't stop it. He laughed bitterly. 'Sirius Black and his _honour_ are the two most contrary concepts you could ever unite in one sentence, Lupin!'

'Not his honour. But he'll honour our vow.'

'A vow made by a murderer, a traitor-'

'You're the one who reminded me of it,' Lupin told Scrimgeour. 'Sirius has evaded the Aurors for months for one purpose. To be near Harry. Why, I don't know, but he'll do this for Harry. I asked, and he vowed it.'

'That's torn it.' Scrimgeour patted his pockets, threw down his napkin in a fit, and extricated the silver cuffs from that morning. 'You are under arrest, Remus John Lupin, by order of the Ministry on charge of knowingly aiding and abetting a criminal. Shacklebolt-' He thrust the cuffs at Kingsley, who hurriedly pocketed his mirror. 'Mr Lupin can enjoy the hospitality of a holding cell as he ponders the wisdom of playing games with serious people. Mr Potter.' Harry jumped to be suddenly addressed. 'I will be advising the Minister of Magic to order a guard of Dementors to attend your safekeeping here at Hogwarts.'

'Dementors, Rufus?' Dumbledore said mildly. 'Is that necessary? Black has, as Mr Lupin admits, quite gone from the school grounds.'

'And by the time he gets back, I will have made this school a fortress. Good day.' Kingsley had cuffed Lupin, and had him impassively by the arm. Scrimgeour seized the other one. 'We'll take every precaution. We'll walk to the gate, and Side-Along Apparate-'

'Quirrell used a cellar under the West Wing,' Lupin said. 'Sirius observed a potions laboratory and a Foe Glass, amongst other things. He's been spying on Quirrell for more than a month, and recording his movements. You'll find his notes in my pocket there, Auror Shacklebolt. Fulfilling his vow, as he could, to protect Harry.'

Harry swallowed. Sirius had been doing that because Harry had asked him to.

'Not another peep from you,' Scrimgeour ordered, but he knocked Kingsley's hand away to get to Lupin's pocket first. He scowled on finding a Muggle notebook- it was one of Harry's, though thankfully he'd never inked his name in it. Scrimgeour didn't wait for any further revelations. He yanked, and between them Kingsley and the Chief Auror marched Lupin out. There was only a momentary pause as they passed Severus Snape, who stood square before the doors. Snape ostentatiously swept aside the hem of his robe to prevent it brushing Lupin's shoes. His lip curled a little in contempt, but he looked very well satisfied, too, at the tight grimace Lupin made in reaction. He smirked at Lupin's back as the Chief Auror dragged Lupin away. The door slammed with an almighty thunderclap behind them.

'I've half a mind to take _you_ over _my_ knee, Severus Snape,' Tonks said tartly. 'Don't think I didn't see that.'

'I didn't say-' Snape protested, startled and oddly defencive.

'And you best not.' To the astonishment of all, Tonks tweaked Snape by his long nose. Even more amazing, Snape only blinked at her, instead of whipping out his wand and blasting her to ashes where she stood. Instead, so suddenly his sallow cheeks fairly blazed, he blushed.

Nicolas Flamel recalled Harry's attention with a hand on his shoulder. Harry stepped back, and Flamel drew him away to the windows, as all the rest of the adults fell into a tumult of outburst questions and exclamations. 'Well,' Flamel observed. 'Your Monsieur Lupin is quite the dashing hero.'

Harry didn't think Lupin would much favour that description. 'What's the bell they were talking about?'

'Do you know the fable of belling the cat?'

'Like those children's stories? We read "Babbity Rabbity" from Beedle the Bard in Muggleborn Orientation, but I don't know one about a cat.'

'Ah, this is one story that Muggles and wizards share.' Flamel had been as interested as Harry in finding out what was going on with the hunt for Sirius Black, but they had more to think about now than ever before, and Harry hardly knew where to begin. 'The belling of the cat,' Flamel said, facing a chilly pane of glass that overlooked the Lake, 'it is an old fable. In the Muggle tale, I believe, it is called _The Parliament of Mice and Rats._ The rats and mice convene to determine what can be done about a murderous cat which threatens their society. All agree the cat cannot be killed, because of its size and swift claws. But perhaps they could attach a bell to its collar, so they could always hear it hunting them. It is the perfect solution... except no rat amongst them is brave enough to volunteer, knowing they might die in the attempt.'

'Oh.' The Aurors had given Lupin a magical bell, then, and wanted him to somehow get it on Sirius, so they would be able to always hear Sirius coming? 'But... Sirius will put the bell on Qu- him- instead. Won't... won't _he_ notice something ringing all over him?'

'Oh, yes. But he will not be able to remove it- at least, not quickly.' Flamel looked at him sidelong. 'For many years it was used to identify werewolves who strayed too close to humans. It was considered kinder than executing them for a curse they could not control. I believe Mr Lupin, and, through him, your Mr Black, would be very familiar with the Bell of Rodilardus. Mr Quirrell, well. Who knows? It is a good gamble, no?'

Sometimes the Wizarding World was too bizarre for Harry. Harry leant his head on the cool glass. He shouldn't have let them arrest Lupin without saying a word in his defence, but it had all gone so quickly. It was Harry's fault, he thought miserably. Harry had spoken to Sirius, had asked him to spy on Quirrell, Harry had made Lupin doubt Sirius's guilt, hadn't told Lupin quickly enough or honestly enough everything that was going on, and now Lupin had gambled everything on Sirius. What if Harry was wrong? And what if Quirrell caught Sirius trying to bell him? It could be horribly dangerous, and Sirius was all alone out there. Misery roiled Harry's gut. It was so very complicated, and he didn't know what he could do to help. No- it was worse than that. Harry couldn't help at all. And he hated it.

'Mr Flamel?' Harry asked thickly. 'You know Snape thinks Quir-' A stab of pain in his scar brought Harry up short. He gritted his teeth and forced it out. 'Rrrrrll can hear us?' he finished, clamping a hand to his head.

Flamel steadied him. 'Whether he can accomplish that feat, I do not know. Albus has studied the arts of the mind far more than myself. He deems it unlikely- at least so long as you are awake, and cognisant enough to resist intrustion.'

Harry closed his eyes. He didn't want to do this. But... but, more than that, he wanted to help Sirius and Lupin, and this was all he had to give.

He said, 'Then maybe it's time for me to take a nap.'


	23. Where The Crow Nests

_In Which The Gauntlet Is Accepted._

Snape heard them out with no visible expression. Then, rather surprisingly, he agreed.

'Who do you have in mind?' he asked, unfolding his arms and removing his wand from his sleeve. He laid it out on the desk between them, rolling it left, then right, then left again with his long fingers. 'To be believable, you'll need someone of sufficient authority.'

Flamel nodded. And then he looked at Harry. He arched a brow, as if to say, 'Well?' though he was kind enough to keep his prompting mute. For his part, Harry tried not to look as nauseous as he felt.

'Er,' he said. 'I... agree.'

Snape rolled his wand to a stop. 'And? You have someone in mind, I'm sure?'

'Dumbledore?'

'Is that a question?'

Flamel put a hand on Harry's shoulder. 'Though I should hesitate to undermine your Headmaster's authority in matters related to your schooling, I suggest we leave Albus out of this particular adventure. I believe under present circumstances the Chief Auror would not look kindly on his involvement.'

'Won't Mr Scrimgeour be angry with all of us?' Harry asked.

'Most certainly,' said Snape.

'Oh. Er...' Harry swallowed hard. He had been in the Potions classroom after school hours, of course, for both detention and to talk with Snape, but this was his first time inside Snape's personal office. It was very nearly the opposite of Lupin's office back at Crowhill. Lupin's office had been stuffed full to bursting- Snape's was as bare as if he'd moved in yesterday. Though it was meticulously clean of dust or cobwebs, the air smelled stale. There was a single shelf of books, all bound in matching black leather. Harry felt a little sick in his gut whenever he looked at them, and they made his eyes hurt. He was scrupulously avoiding them. Snape had conjured chairs for them when they entered, Harry leading uneasily and Flamel pointedly following, and then Snape had sat at his desk much the way Dumbledore did at his office, though his chair was rather less like a throne and more like the Chair in the Head's office at Crowhill, wooden and uncomfortable-looking and designed to keep you upright no matter how sore your bum was. Harry felt very small and very unprepared for this, for all it had been his own idea.

But it had been his own idea, and he still thought it was a good idea, or at least a good enough idea to be getting on with, given the urgency of the matter. So he tried his best to think. Who would be most convincing? Someone with authority, someone who could say all the right words and be believed?

'A school governor,' he said.

Snape's eyes narrowed. 'Hmm,' he said, but it sounded grudgingly approving. 'Malfoy.'

'He would do it, don't you think?'

'If it further obligated you to him, I think he'd arrive with bells on.'

Harry had had quite enough of bells in the last hour. 'There's not much choice, is there? We need him.'

'You need not be the one to sacrifice,' Flamel told him gently. 'It is not nobility to underestimate your own worth, Master Harry. If you must buy cooperation, do not pay above its value.'

Snape looked at Flamel as if seeing him for the first time. He said nothing to this, but he looked very thoughtful, and not a little disquieted, suddenly.

Harry wet his lips. 'He's already done a lot for me. Mr Malfoy. I don't know what else I have to offer him.'

'Whatever you've already given away was no doubt far beyond his expectations. Fipsy.' Before Harry could goggle at this strange word popping out of Snape's usually dignified mouth, a house elf appeared at the professor's side. 'Tea for three,' Snape ordered. 'And a soup and sandwich, I think. Mr Potter should not go without his supper, and we have precious little time as it is. Malfoy is a simple creature at heart, Potter. Most people in his position are. What do you know of him? From your own information or information which you have gathered since your introduction to the Wizarding World.' Snape paused, and added, 'Aloud, please, so we may correct your reasoning before you slide too far into error.'

'Oh. Um.' Harry picked at the strange burn on his right hand, which he now knew had happened when Quirrell had taken him in search of the Stone. The small pinpricks of pain preoccupied him, momentarily, til he realised quite suddenly that he did know something about Mr Malfoy, something awful. He drew a deep breath. 'I know he was a Death Eater during the war.'

Snape's face went just a tiny bit blanker. 'Yes.'

'Draco said it upsets him when it's in the paper or people say things about him. That's why... that's why he went after Rita Skeeter, I think. I mean, for me, but also for him. He said he had interests to protect, too.'

'Who is this Rita Skeeter?' Flamel wondered.

'A columnist for _The Daily Prophet_ ,' Snape explained shortly. 'Though what Mr Potter here has let slip about "going after" her is a mystery I hope to be shortly elucidated.'

Harry was spared whatever elucidated meant for him by the re-appearance of Fipsy the house elf. She- or he, Harry hadn't quite figured out how to make out the boys from the girls unless they outright told him- staggered under the weight of an overflowing tea tray. Steaming tea poured itself into waiting cups and the ewer of milk dashed between them, closely followed by a pair of tongs dropping cubed sugar into the tea, but Fipsy shyly served Harry a plate of cashew chicken sandwiches, shivering ecstatically when Harry thanked her. 'Fipsy made them herself!' she squeaked.

Girl, then. 'They're wonderful,' Harry said, taking a large bite to please her, though his appetite was nonexistent. She wiggled all over with her hands clasped to her pointed chin.

'Go,' Snape ordered her, in long-suffering tones, and with a final worshipful glance at Harry, she vanished.

Harry dropped the sandwich back to his plate. It was an effort to swallow, as if the chicken were sawdust and he could hardly gag it down. A big swallow of hot tea helped, but his hand was shaking.

Flamel cupped Harry's hands between his, forming them around the warm porcelain. 'Perhaps you should rest, Master Harry.'

'There's no time,' he fretted. 'Sirius is out there and Quir-' He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain in his head. 'I have to do something.'

'Let us call this Mr Malfoy,' Flamel said to Snape in quite an abrupt tone, suddenly hard and even angry. 'We have left events in the hands of a child long enough. No more.'

Snape blinked. 'We have not discussed...'

'I am fully prepared. You may contribute or not, Professor, as you see fit. Please issue the summons.'

'Sir!'

'Drink your tea, Master Harry,' Flamel told him, softening a bit. 'It is one English habit I have always found quite comforting.'

Like Chief Auror Scrimgeour, Mr Malfoy answered Snape's firecall looking as though he'd been interrupted at dinner. Unlike Scrimgeour, he was nothing but polite and patient when he stepped through the Floo and found the three of them waiting for him. 'Master Flamel,' he said, bowing deeply, and nodding a courteous greeting to Snape. To Harry, Mr Malfoy directed a long considering stare.

'I had hoped to find you in better condition, young man,' he said. 'Not still embroiled in this madness.'

'Then your wishes echo mine,' Flamel nodded. 'Most excellent. We can come to an agreement with no negotiation necessary.'

'No negotiation?' Malfoy repeated quizzically, as if only faintly interested. 'You have my attention, learned sir, but I'm afraid my understanding lags. About what are we agreeing?'

'We are agreeing to a very simple point. That we all have an interest in young Harry's health, and the opportunity to ensure it.'

'Somehow I don't think you've brought me here for anything that simple.'

'But it is,' Flamel said. 'We begin with a question. You have had prior dealings with young Master Harry- a boy of eleven, however uniquely talented. What promises did you secure from this child in exchange for whatever he asked of you?'

Harry bit his lip. He didn't know Mr Malfoy very well, but the tight press of his mouth looked furious. 'Your fame and renown notwithstanding, _Mister_ Flamel, you intrude on private matters uninvited.'

'Nonetheless, I will intrude. I do not ask what you have done for Master Harry, only what was promised in exchange.'

'Did you not ask this child you're so concerned for?'

'One does not ask a child to be responsible for the deeds of an adult.'

Malfoy's lips were nearly white with rage. He said, quite evenly, 'I asked for nothing he was unwilling to give.'

'Willing, I think, is overstating the matter.'

The space of three breaths passed. Harry stared, heart pounding. He had never seen anything so horribly tense, and he didn't understand why. Why Flamel would do this for him.

'A two-week stay at the Malfoy Manor this summer, to include a visit to the Ministry in my company and a public display of friendship with my son.'

'And?'

'And,' Malfoy said through clenched teeth, 'an interview with Rita Skeeter in which Mr Potter states unequivocal forgiveness of any unfortunate associations the Malfoys may have had during the war.'

'Ah, yes, I have just been told of this Rita Skeeter. She writes a newspaper.'

'She is well-known. She has already published considerable material about Mr Potter. A personal interview with him would crown her career.'

'And you, in arranging that interview, would become her benefactor. A... what is the English? A "fixer", oui? You hold the key to accessing Harry Potter, and you put the words in his mouth for her to print.'

Malfoy's chin tilted up proudly. 'I don't know what you want, Mister Flamel, but if you desire it you will cease these insults to my good name. I am not a man to be trifled with.'

'Your good name, it appears, depends on Master Harry's influence.' Flamel tapped his fingers against his thigh once, twice, three times. He said, 'I make you a new offer. I do not trifle with reputations. I offer something much more concrete.' He removed a phial from his pocket, and set it on the corner of Snape's desk.

Snape moved toward it, curiousity livening his dark eyes, but awe stopped him in his tracks. 'Is that-' he gasped.

'The tincture of immortality.'

Malfoy had gone still as if Stunned. His mouth hung open, silenced as effectively as a spell.

'This phial,' Flamel said, touching the cork with a fingertip, 'contains enough to lengthen the natural lifespan of your years by a century. You are married, yes? You have a son? Shared three ways, this tincture would protect them even in the face of certain death. I need not tell you, Malfoy, this is a greater value than any bargain you could make with Master Harry. And I need not tell you, I think, that I expect you to immediately release Master Harry from any promises made.'

Malfoy came to life with a twitch. His hand reached, longingly, for the phial, before he recovered enough discipline to stop himself. His voice emerged a tiny bit hoarser than usual. 'I would expect no less.'

'Then we are agreed?'

'I have not yet heard terms.'

'Does it matter? You will meet them.'

Malfoy swallowed convulsively. 'Agreed,' he rasped.

Flamel picked up the phial. He weighed it gently in his hand. And then he passed it to Malfoy, who took it with both hands, handling it as if it were the greatest treasure he had ever beheld.

Snape hung his head. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, over his throat, and he looked up at Harry with a troubled wrinkle between his brows. 'You humble me, Master Flamel,' he said quietly.

Flamel took up his seat beside Harry again, and took up a cup of tea, too, sipping peacably. 'When you are as old as I am, Professor Snape, it is easy to weigh priorities and decide where one's honour is most at stake. Master Harry, why don't you try a sandwich again, please. I think we will be very busy for the next hour or two.'

Malfoy tucked the phial into the pocket over his heart, but cupped his hand to his coat as if he couldn't bear to let it go just yet. 'You have some very interesting friends, Master Harry,' he said. 'It flatters me to be one of them.' He squeezed the phial, and nodded to himself. 'I am yours to command,' he said.

* * *

'Out of the car, boy.'

Duddy got in one more good kick as Boy slid from the seat onto the car mat below. Duddy, restrained by the many straps of his big car seat, pouted and grumbled, but Boy, who only used the belt on the backseat bench, had only to stand. The child safety locks were not engaged on his side, and the application of a little strength was sufficient to release the latch and push the door open. Boy climbed down to the pavement. It was dark out, but he didn't mind the dark. His cupboard was dark, too. But it was also cold, and his bare toes curled up at contact with the chilly ground.

Uncle rolled down his window. He thrust something out the door at Boy, who took it immediately, lest he catch a smack to the head. He got it anyway, but it was only a light one, to push him back from the car. But the next grab pulled him near again by the collar of his shirt. Uncle pinned something to him. Uncle didn't say what it was, and he knew better than to ask.

'Be good, boy,' Aunt said from the driver's side, and Boy nodded as he always did. He tried. He was an awful boy, but he didn't want to be, and he always tried to be good.

'Are you sure,' he heard Uncle say, in a querelous sort of tone that usually meant he was going to wail on about something Boy had done wrong, and he tensed.

'We agreed, darling,' Aunt told him. 'It's for the best. It's for all of us.'

Boy stood where he was as they drove away. When the car had gone round the corner, he knew, somehow, he wouldn't see it again. His throat was very tight and sore. He wiped the tatty sleeve of his shirt across his nose, and stood on one foot first, then the other, trying to warm them a bit at a time. Duddy's jumpsuit had been plenty big when Aunt gave it to him, but lately it had gone short in the ankles and wrists, and gapped at his chest. Uncle had pinned a bit of paper to his front, but it did him no good. If it was instructions, they knew he had to be told again and again. He was a bad boy, and ignorant, and it was only their great kindness that they gave him a place, because no-one else would.

And he was to be good. So he stayed where they'd put him, and he waited for them to come back for him, even as the night grew very long, and frost appeared on the windows, and the strange looming buildings all around him turned off their lights and went dark. He had to wait for them and he had to stay awake because they hadn't put him in his cupboard yet so he could sleep and he didn't even look in the pillowcase Uncle had given him, because good boys didn't peek where they weren't invited to and he would show them how good he could be when he tried.

'Son? You lost, son?'

He startled alert, swaying, but he'd kept to his feet and he didn't fall even now- Aunt had him stand in the corner sometimes for whole days and he could always keep his feet. He dropped his eyes to his frozen toes, but not before he caught a glimpse. It was a policeman. He knew what policemen looked like from Duddy's picture books in the rubbish bin.

'You all right, son? You been out here long? Where'd you come from, eh?'

Aunt said he was never, ever to talk to policemen. Ever.

'What's your name?' The policeman knelt before him. 'Someone's written you a little name tag, I see. Harry? Your name's Harry?'

Don't talk to policemen. But also don't lie. He didn't know which to obey. He shook his head.

'No? Not Harry? Can you tell me what it is, then?' The policeman settled a warm hand on his shoulder. 'I'm sorry, love, I didn't hear you. Say it again.'

'Boy,' Boy whispered.

'Your name is Boy?' The policeman unclipped the piece of paper Uncle had pinned to. '"Harry J Potter - please accept." Harry- Boy- did someone leave you here? Did someone hurt you? You're a block of ice, have you been left here all night?'

'I've been good,' Boy whispered urgently. 'Tell them I've been good.'

The policeman opened the bag Uncle had given him. He looked very angry, red in the face the way Uncle got when Aunt told him everything Boy had done wrong that day. Boy braced himself.

But the policeman only shrugged out of his thick coat and wrapped it around Boy instead, and picked him up about the waist, not yanking him off his feet by the arms. He settled Boy on one hip, like Aunt did with Duddy, and he carried Boy into one of the tall buildings. Boy never went Inside anywhere but Aunt and Uncle's, and he hid his face so he wouldn't see anything he wasn't supposed to, but despite his best intentions he saw the pretty glass lamps glowing a welcoming gold, and the black and white pattern of diamonds on the floor going clack-clack-clack with the policeman's shiny shoes, and the big wooden desk. He closed his eyes tight before he could see any more.

'Bloom, is the Inspector on duty yet?'

'Late, traffic. Who've you got there?'

'I think he's been out in that weather all night. Look at this note, it was pinned to these rags he's wearing. And I don't think he knows his own name. Harry? Boy? Let's get you sat down and warmed up, shall we? Bloom, take him into the office and hot him up some milk. Let go, son, it's all right. Bloom here will take good care of you.'

'I'm Constable Bloom,' a woman's voice said. He peeked- he couldn't help it- and just in time to see his policeman leaving as he was passed to the lady. She had pretty blonde hair brushed neatly under a tidy black cap, and she had a badge on her shoulder where she held him. He touched it, and she smiled at him. 'But you can call me Lindsey. Look at those green eyes of yours!' she said, and he flinched, caught. Aunt and Uncle hated him to look directly at them- his eyes were freaky, they said, his eyes were how everyone knew he was a freak- but then Lindsey said the most wonderful thing. 'Those are the handsomest eyes I've ever seen,' she said, and smiled at him like she really meant it, the way Aunt smiled at Duddy. For the first time ever, he felt his own lips curling up, unsure but unable to suppress it. Lindsey stroked his hair back from his forehead, and gave him a teasing little tickle. He buried his face in her shoulder.

'I know where Constable Johnny there hides his special biscuits,' she whispered confidingly. 'Let's have a look-see, you and I. Then we can set about finding your parents, all right?'

'They're dead,' he said. Oh, and Aunt and Uncle would be so angry with him. He'd talked to two policemen now, and he wasn't to take food that wasn't his, that was one of the most important rules. 'I'm sorry,' he tried, but he was shaking, and his voice was shaking. 'I'm really sorry, I swear.'

'Only people who've done something wrong have anything to be sorry for,' Lindsey told him. 'And I rather think you're the one who's owed an apology. A lot of apologies, I think.' She traced the scar on his forehead, and sighed. 'What you don't see in the world,' she muttered. 'You'll be safe here, I promise you that. Everything will be all right now. You'll be safe.'

* * *

 _'Harry.'_

 _A hand stroked his forehead. Cool against the burning heat of his skin. He tossed, nearly waking- nearly- aware, just momentarily, of that small comfort, but then he was sinking, drowning. Gone._

* * *

He trod a stair, and paused as it creaked. The pause saved his life- the woman fired a spell from the head of the stairwell, a violent projectile that exploded red and sparking against the wall at his shoulder. He laughed. She was everything Severus had said; it was a shame her birth was so lowly. A witch of her power and ingenuity would have been a valuable warrior.

'Come out, come out,' he crooned, countering her curse with a jinx that plunged them into impenetrable darkness. Her gasping breaths were a sweet accompaniment to the tempo of his steps as he climbed toward her, confident in his path. There were only three rooms at the second level of the house, and he knew she would retreat not to her own bedroom, or to the bath, but the child's nursery. 'Why do you fight me? I have come on a mission of mercy.'

'Mercy?' she hissed. To his left. Yes, she had gone back to the nursery, and he knew from the electric charge in the air she had raised wards. They had an interesting flavour on the tongue, something exotic, like the faintest whiff of a half-familiar perfume. But they would fall. Her strength was impressive, but Light magic could never match Dark for creativity. The Light was obdurate as a mountain, but even mountains crumbled to gravel with the right application of force. 'Mercy,' she spat, as if the very syllables offended. 'You claim mercy over the bodies of my husband and child.'

'I have freed you of their chains,' he corrected her gently. 'Your beloved husband was unworthy of you- untalented, uncurious, a creature of appetites and impulse and little sense. And your child is doomed- not by my hand. Blame the prophecy if you will, but he was marked before me. You will have others. Is that not merciful? Think of the love you have yet to give to those children.'

 _'Diffindo!'_

He deflected the charm with a negligent wave of his hand. 'Not nearly good enough, my dear.'

'No?' He felt the gathering force of her magic. _'Accio_ blood,' she hissed, and, too late, he felt the smallest slice of separated skin- the outer edge of his fingertip, where he held his wand, a tiny cut where the flesh only barely split, enough to squeeze out a single drop of blood.

Fury filled him. _'Crucio!'_ he howled, flinging the curse through the darkness, and again when it dissipated without finding its target. A hastily slammed door exploded to splinters, and, somewhere within the oppressive black, a baby shrieked. 'Give me the child and I will forgive your transgression, woman. Fight me, and I will not hesitate to drain you drip by drip for daring to violate my person!'

Muttering. The charge in the air flattened, deadened, then, like wildfire, spread on an invisible wind.

He climbed the final stair. The corridor was short, the nursery nearest, and he stepped over the shattered door. The child's cot, he knew, stood against the outer wall, beneath the window, and he knew where the fool woman would be. 'What is your answer?'

'Harry,' she whispered, and he could hear her shuddering sob, her final kiss, blazing against the darkness. He could feel her wand rise, the drag of magic pulsating through her nerves, rising, cresting, bursting outward.

He met her final spell with the killing curse. Her body crumpled to the floor, a sad limp thump in the aftermath of a lightning strike. The viral green of the curse lingered like a stain on his eyelids, a poisonous odour that almost masked the taint of her magic. He breathed deep of that heady brew, and the crawl of anticipation, sensual and tantalising. He stepped over the corpse, already forgotten, and banished the darkness. He would watch the child die.

It was a strange little thing. He had never seen an infant, excepting himself, and everything about it was almost viscerally replusive. It wore a soiled nappy and its button-like nose was rimmed wet with snot, its eyes leaking tears. It was silent, that was the only saving grace, and still, sitting upright in a nest of bedclothes and staring up through the bars of the cot. When he reached into the crib to pick it up, the child didn't squirm away or squawl at finding itself manhandled by a stranger. A small fist smeared one eye and it bobbed its head as if it were too heavy to hold up, abruptly sagging into his shoulder with a sigh. Its hot little body was an impossibility of pumping blood and twitching limbs and sighing breaths, a fragile concoction of flesh and spirit.

He carried the child to the changing table, and laid it flat. It didn't stay that way, immediately pushing upright, though it didn't try to climb down. Vividly green eyes searched the room, falling on the woman sprawled on the floor. 'Muh,' the boy said, pointing, and clapped its hands, flapped them at the ends of its chubby arms. 'Muh.'

'You'll join her soon,' he told the child, smoothing back thick dark hair that slipped away from his fingers like so many threads of silk. He paused at an interesting sight- a thumbprint, on the boy's forehead, outlined in blood. A glance backward at the dead woman confirmed it. Her outflung right hand bore a spot of red. What had she done- or tried to do? The thumbprint hovered over the boy's eye, an inexplicable mark. He could sense nothing about it, and when he smeared the blood with a swipe of his own hand nothing happened.

'Muh,' the boy said, but it was a hopeless little cry, and it turned its cheek into his hand, clutched at his sleeve. He caressed its soft hot skin. It would be monstrous to end a life this helpless. It was a fitting end to a journey that had begun with the murder of his own kin. A life made all the more precious for the sacrifice given to preserve it for a few more futile minutes. It would be the crowning victory that would secure his power, unparalleled and unassailable, for the rest of time.

He levelled his wand. He centred himself, and focussed on the intent, let it swell in him, determined and coldly certain. 'Harry Potter,' he said, and smiled. _'Avada Kedavra.'_

And the night burned.

* * *

 _'Harry. Lead him to it.'_

* * *

Harry was dreaming.

He thought he was dreaming. He was in a strange place, a dark place, a damp place. Everything smelled of mould and rot- the wallpaper, peeling from the boards, the carpet, black with decades of mildew. Holes in the ceiling from broken shingles had let the rain in, and an army of small animals had made their homes over successive generations in the furniture til only rusted iron skeletons remained of beds and couches. A cauldron steamed gently over a low flame, his supper brewing. To squat in this squalour like a Muggle was a humiliation and an affront he would not soon forget.

'Master?'

'Be silent, fool.' He lifted his head. Something... something was nearing. He rose from the pile of rags he had made his bed, sniffing the air, but almost immediately he knew it wasn't one of his bodily senses. He was no longer alone, and yet he knew with absolute certainty he was the only living creature in this dungheap.

'Master?'

'I ordered you to be silent!' He pushed back his hood, stepping to the window. He swiped his sleeve over the dingy panes, peering up at the moon. Just past full, it competed with the soft glow of the village just over the hill, the lights of Muggle cars on the motorway, the lone light of the television in the caretaker's cottage, positioned like a sad splotch between the ragged garden and the old forgotten graveyard. No, he was alone.

'Master...'

He ignored his servant's cringeing whine, a faded whisper that would soon cease to bother him at all. If the disturbance was not here, it could be only one other thing. The school. He closed his eyes, summoning the meditative state that had long come to him as readily as breathing, even in this half-life. He unmoored his mind, tethered it only by a single thread of consciousness, and let himself fall, and fall, til a new anchor freed him from the current and dragged him to a halt once more.

He opened eyes that blurred on a dim room. He put out a hand, searching, and felt them resting near him on a quilt- his glasses. He slid them on and rolled his head on a limp cushion, orientating to his surroundings. He had fallen asleep in a chair, a merry fire burning in the hearth and casting toasty warmth on his stockinged feet. What had called to him was the whispering breaking into rising tones of anger and worry.

The men stood over a desk, their argument marked by jerking hands and tense shoulders. The elder of the three, grey hair brushing his shoulders, was shaking his head in disagreement. The one with dark hair falling in strings about his beaky nose said something dismissive, and the third, hair as pale as moonlight, soothed him. He shifted to his left, the swoop of his long cape swept away with a shrug of his shoulder, and the space between their bodies revealed what sat on the desk. A stone, pulsating with a faint blushing red.

'This cannot be the real Stone,' Severus Snape said again.

'Then it is a forgery of amazing skill,' shrugged Nicolas Flamel. 'And I tell you again I can sense no difference between this Stone and the one I have held in these two hands for centuries.'

'Gentlemen,' Malfoy soothed them. 'This discussion has led us nowhere. I ask again-'

'There is no means by which a boy who did not even know he was a wizard seven months ago could have retrieved the Stone from the Mirror!' Snape swore. 'And not only from the Mirror, but a Mirror that only exists in a _Pensieve_!'

'The question of how must be put aside,' Malfoy said, and silence fell. 'The question we should bend our minds to is this: what next?'

'You heard the Chief Auror,' Snape muttered sullenly, folding his arms over his chest to glower at the Stone. 'By midnight there will be a dozen Dementors guarding Hogwarts. No-one will be getting in or getting out for the foreseeable future. Not Sirius Black, not Quirinus Quirrell. There is no "what next", Lucius. There is only holding in place til the Ministry tires of pretending to care.'

'The Stone is not safe here.' Flamel picked it up, turning it gently between his palms the way one might have cossetted a beloved pet. 'Not while that boy can pluck it from any depth.'

'If there is no place to hide the Stone where the boy cannot reach it...' Malfoy turned, and Harry quickly shut his eyes, head drooping on his neck. 'Our only choice is to remove the boy from Hogwarts,' Malfoy finished heavily.

'Albus will never agree,' Snape sighed. 'He believes Hogwarts is impenetrable.'

'Then Dumbledore is the problem, and the solution is obvious.' Malfoy turned back to the others. 'I have friends in the Ministry. It will be no particular hardship to arrange some suitable fuss in the Wizengamot-'

'He often absents himself from the voting quorum.'

'And anything disruptive enough to require the Chief Warlock to decide a vote would also require the participation of department heads,' Flamel added. 'I think we do not wish to attract the attention of Chief Auror Scrimgeour.'

'The International Confederation of Wizards, however, is sufficiently bureaucratic to erupt in discord with the slightest push.' Malfoy tapped his chin consideringly. 'And it would take Albus out of the country, not just to London. That would give us time to remove Potter.'

'To where?'

'To my manor, of course.'

'Of course,' Snape sneered. 'How convenient. The Boy-Who-Lived in your clutches at last.'

'You have a better idea, I suppose.'

'I don't-' Snape's contemptuous glare abruptly flattened into a thoughtful frown. And then into a sly smirk. 'I do,' he said. 'As a matter of fact, I do.'

Into the weighted silence Malfoy rolled his eyes heavenward. 'Well?' he prompted. 'Share with the class, Professor.'

'We place him where this little problem began. In the Pensieve.'

He broke the meditative state to find himself back in his own body. Quirrell was whimpering, but was easily pushed into the dark, locked away where his wailing was less than the flapping of a gnat's wings, only bothersome til there was sufficient opportunity to squish the nuisance. He swept away from the window to his trunk, the whole of what he'd removed from Hogwarts when he'd fled, then sure of his victory. But victory was attainable still. Victory, and the opportunity to squash a bug of far greater irritation. It was time to see to the problem of Harry Potter once and for all.

He thrust aside a sackcloth of Galleons and removed a slightly sticky bottle of butterbeer. He smiled. _'Portus,'_ he whispered, and let the magic take him.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes to find Flamel's hand on his knee, shaking him lightly. Snape, beside him, bent to peer into Harry's eyes; a moment later, satisfied, he nodded.

'He is himself again,' he told the others, and Malfoy sighed in relief.

'Drink this,' Flamel offered, giving Harry a cup of hot pumpkin juice. At the first sip, Harry found himself parched, and downed half of it in quick gulps. Malfoy sank into a chair across from Harry's, watching him warily, and Snape paced, his black robe flaring in his wake like bat wings.

'Well?' Snape demanded, when his short supply of patience ran dry.

'He's coming,' Harry said.

'Excellent. Finally, something going to plan. Quirrell is barely competent to teach idiot first years, he'll trip over his own feet sooner than-'

'He's not Quir-' Harry gagged on his pumpkin juice, grabbing his head. Flamel grabbed a napkin to pat Harry dry where he'd spilled.

'Not what?' Mr Malfoy asked.

Harry forced himself to breathe through the pain. 'He's not who he said he is,' he managed. 'Or he's not anymore.'

'Then who is he?' Snape demanded.

His scar was burning hot as a poker. Harry gritted his teeth, as Flamel rubbed comfortingly at his neck.

'Voldemort,' Harry said. 'He's Voldemort.'


	24. I Am Lord Voldemort

_In Which The Enemy Is Met._

Mr Malfoy's ashen face turned up suddenly. 'My son,' he said. 'Severus-'

'I'll summon him.'

Mr Malfoy grabbed a handful of powder from the jar at the mantel, hurling it into the fireplace. 'Malfoy Manor,' Mr Malfoy said, stepping over the grate, but even as he stuck his foot toward it, the green flames fell and only normal orange and red remained. Mr Malfoy cursed- his shoe came back smoldering. 'What's wrong with your floo?'

As if to answer him, a bell began to toll. It wasn't like the carillon bells that rang at the morning and between classes, a merry tune that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. This was a deep, foreboding tone, and it made the floor shiver under Harry's feet.

'The klaxon,' Snape rasped. He gripped his wand with white knuckles. 'My apologies, Lucius, but I must to my duties as Head of Slytherin House.'

'My son-'

'You can see to him yourself, once I've accounted for his presence. He won't be leaving. Neither will you. The klaxon means they've closed off the school entirely.'

'Closed-?'

'I would hazard the Dementors have arrived at Hogwarts. Potter.'

Harry started. His head ached fiercely, a throbbing kind of pain that put a queasy rumble in his stomach. 'What?'

'What, _sir_. You will accompany me to the Great Hall.'

'I thought I was going to Dumbledore's office?'

'Why, Potter, would I put you in the very place I have just got finished telling your avowed enemy I planned to stash you? I assure you, whatever the first year Gryffindors may think, I have no desire to see you-' A strange thing happened then. Snape didn't finish his sentence, his mouth still open with a word half-formed, but it was clear some dark thought had occurred to him. 'Dead,' he said slowly, but then his brows drew together, his knuckle rising thoughtfully to his lip.

'But-' Harry cast an appealing look at Flamel, who shook his head.

'Your professor is correct in this, Master Harry.'

'But Sirius!'

'I cannot think of a place safer for you than in the midst of some dozen professors sworn to protect the students, not to mention hundreds of trained witches and wizards, the upper years at least. Sirius Black, innocent or guilty, is a secondary concern. A third, fourth, or fifth concern, Potter, if you're correct about- Quirrell.' Snape paused to swallow as if with some difficulty. 'And more to the point, I don't owe you my reasons. Obey me or I'll saddle you with so many detentions it will take you an extra year to matriculate. Move, boy.'

So Harry was moved. Mr Flamel and Mr Malfoy both accompanied them, striding at a pace through the corridors that had Harry moving at an awkward jog to keep at their heels, and one or the other of the men always had a hand on him, his shoulder or his elbow or his collar, hauling him along. The path they took seemed labrynthine to Harry, who had never been to the dungeons unaccompanied. His Slytherin friends had known their path and so Harry hadn't paid it much mind. But there was a familiar statute- a goblin bowing with a handful of gold Galleons extended humbly- and there a tapestry he'd seen before, a bloody battle of centaurs and wizards with the centaurs routed again and again for however many centuries the threads had hung there in this lonely stone corner. Harry just about recognised where he was when they came to an abrupt halt at the Slytherin common room. Snape spat out the password and pushed inside, just as the deep thrum of the klaxon went shuddering through the castle once more.

'Assemble!' Snape ordered in an impressive bellow, and Slytherins came pouring out of doors, some half-dressed as they relaxed after dinner, a pair of girls appearing with squeals of protest in towels and suds. Snape Transfigured them dressing gowns from pillows on the green velvet sofas, but wouldn't hear complaints of wet hair and bare feet as he sent them to stand with their classmates. He went through a roll-call by memory, and sent the prefects off to hunt down those missing.

'Follow me to the Great Hall,' he ordered his students. 'No dawdling, no pranks, and no fussing. We will progress in good order in groups of five- stand with your roommates where present, and report to your prefects if you have not located anyone not present by the time we have roll-call again in the Hall. No questions, Bardsley. Leave that sack of candy or I will banish it to the bottom of the Black Lake, Goyle. Fingers out of noses and hands to yourselves. Let us demonstrate discipline and composure to the other Houses.' He brushed Harry into place with Teddy Nott and Draco, who was staring hard at his father with a frown. 'Keep ranks, Potter. If you embarrass me I shall be swift to take points.'

House pride made Harry wish he could put Snape in his place, but it was rapidly clear that discipline and composure were not the order of the day. The Great Hall was a scene of chaos when they arrived. Many students had shed their robes after the evening meal and the Hufflepuff Quidditch team were in full gear, and the rest was a mix of Muggle and Wizarding clothing of the usual eccentric persuasion. The Ravenclaws could be picked out for having arrived with half a library's wealth of books and seemed to be conducting a strained revision session at their table, but the pitch of chatter- gossip and rank speculation and not a little giddy excitement from the lower years who thought it was something of a game- drowned out all attempt at reasonable conversation. At least til the first explosion. Dead silence gripped the Hall for ten seconds at least, before it erupted again at twice the volume- cheers, boos, and one Percy Weasley's strident lecture as grinning twins Fred and George bowed over the glittering dust of whatever prank they'd just unleashed.

In this mess Harry was but one first year, and not one specially gifted with height that would have allowed him some vantage over the scene. What he could see was largely a press of bodies wiggling, shifting, jostling, and squabbling, and some instinct kept him from plunging into the mass of it in search of his own roommates. Instead he let Draco seize him by the arm, and trailed him unresisting toward a window where they might go unobserved for the moment, with the Heads all absorbed in organising and counting. 'What's going on?' Draco demanded in a hot whisper.

Where to begin? In twenty-four hours Harry's world had been entirely upended. He, like Snape, stood with his mouth open, dark thoughts swirling.

'Harry?'

'Do you feel that?' He shivered. He shivered, suddenly, and rubbed hands that had grown over icy, and turned his head toward the window when a trickle of wintry air stirred the hair at his neck and ears. The window had gone all over frost. Harry swiped at the glass with his sleeve, fitting an eye to the portal he'd cleared. It was deepest midnight outside, with only a hint of grey light limning the mountains. And the dark was moving.

'Dementors,' he said. 'What are they?'

'I think we've already had this conversation.'

'They weren't here yet, then.'

Draco joined him at the window, taking his turn to peer out into the gloom. Harry wiped with his cuff again, but the window was rapidly frosting over. 'They're here? At Hogwarts?'

A thunderclap sent everyone whirling about in a fright. It was Dumbledore there at the head of the Great Hall, and on the steps below him stood the teaching staff, all of them grimly facing down the student body, which quieted respectfully. Well, but for a few titters here and there. Pansy Parkinson was one of them, ducking behind Millie Bulstrode when Snape glowered.

'Thank you all for responding swiftly and safely in this moment of crisis,' said the Headmaster, his voice low but finding its way into every nook and cranny nonetheless. 'It is, unfortunately, a crisis. We have a security issue which necessitates overriding caution. As such, I have declared the grounds closed, and I am locking down all extraneous areas until we are ensured of our total safety. Your professors and our doughty crew of house elves will move amongst you now- we must sacrifice some slight comforts tonight, and I ask for your forbearance tonight. Girls and boys may, this once, sleep amongst each other, but your professors will have the final say on the distance between sleeping bags.'

This announcement gave the 'crisis' a bit of a holiday air, and the gravity of the situation went unobserved by the majority of students who promptly began a jostle for pride of place with friends. Before long the chatter had resumed previous levels. The merriment of elves arriving with kit and bags was only augmented by the display of the professors removing the long dining tables to the walls with magic, levitating them above the heads of marvelling students to clear the floor. Only the Ravenclaws were much distressed at losing their study spot, and they grumbled as they sorted themselves into groups for sleeping.

'Harry,' Draco said, and a head turned, and then another, and quite suddenly Harry was surrounded by a crowd a dozen deep.

'Harry! You could kip with us.'

'They're boring, Potter, come over to Hufflepuff!'

'He's a bloody Gryff, leave off-'

'You get him every night, Weasley, share 'im about.'

'Back off,' Millicent Bulstrode barked, her bulk effectively clearing a path to Harry's side. Hermione managed the same thing by wriggling and burrowing, Ron appeared to be climbing over shorter first-years, and Neville was waving forlornly from across the Hall, and Harry cringed away.

A hand seized him. Cedric. 'Clear off, you ravenous dogs,' he chided. 'Let the lad breathe. Come on, Harry, I see a clear spot toward the back.'

That worked like gangbusters. The gullible ones took off running, thinking to get to the back and meet him at his arrival. The cleverer ones saw through it, of course, but were reluctant to risk losing out, and off they trotted. Cedric followed through on the fake-out like a true Seeker, guiding Harry through the crowd, before swerving suddenly left and ducking into the shelter of Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. Cedric deposited Harry on a Hufflepuff yellow sleeping bag and hurriedly shed his Quidditch robe for Harry to don. It hung large as a blanket on Harry, but he yanked up the hood and laid flat on his bag, and breathed out a sigh of relief when no-one came shouting after him.

'Thanks, Cedric,' he said, as the fourth year sprawled out beside him on a Gryffindor red bag. Draco got stuck with Ravenclaw blue, and scowled even more when Hermione, who had made it to their spot as well, casually flicked her wand and turned it Slytherin green for him.

'Honestly, what a to-do,' Hermione commented, seating herself primly and tucking a stray curl into her hair wrap. 'Harry, where've you been? No-one's seen you all day.'

'Percy had, I've been saying that forever,' Ron complained, throwing himself onto Harry's bag and only reluctantly shoving off when Hermione glared at him. He missed his chance at the last red bag as Neville took it, and groaned his way into a yellow. It clashed with his freckles.

'Fine, since the morning, when Percy said you weren't in trouble but there was something going on and it was none of our business.' Hermione glanced to the left and then the right, and leant in. 'I presume it has something to do the you-know-what?'

'What?'

'Ron! You _know what._ '

'You mean the Stone? Oh. Yeah, must do.' Ron picked pensively at his shoelaces. 'I bet the Phoenix people are in on it, doing secret stuff who knows where in the castle. Didn't see any of them involved in the lock-down.'

'You don't think they'll really lock us in?' Neville wondered. 'I need the loo.'

Ron brandished his wand. 'We'll just _Alohom_ ohhh,' he said, sagging himself. 'Nope, there's Percy setting up a queue for the WC.'

Draco rolled his eyes broadly. 'Harry?' he asked impatiently.

'Oh, er... it is to do with the Stone, or the Order, er, well, bits do.' Harry glanced too, but he was seeking specific sights- the professors had all gathered at the front again and were conversing in urgent tones, completely ignored by everyone under sixty. 'A lot happened, I... I'm not even sure where to start... Draco, what did your father say?'

'Hardly a word, but-' Mr Malfoy stood with the teachers, nodding along as if he were listening, but he was pale, and sweat gleamed on his high forehead. He kept touching his front pocket as if reassuring himself of something. Draco frowned uncertainly. 'He's worried,' Draco said.

'You're worried,' Cedric pointed out to Harry. 'The truth, and quick. Bet they'll call lights-out soon as they can to keep us all quiet.'

So Harry explained, or tried to. Mostly he managed a few false starts, far more turn-abouts, and a very tangled attempt to catch up his friends on a number of introductions he'd been putting off so long that now it all seemed far worse than he thought they'd been when they'd happened individually over months. 'Sirius Black!' Ron yelped at one point, viciously hushed by the others, and 'Nicolas Flamel?' Hermione squealed, looking as though she'd just been told Father Christmas was real and had the keys to every library on the planet in his sack of toys. 'Remus Lupin?' came from Neville. 'The bloke who helped with Hagrid's dragonette knew your parents?'

'Er,' Harry said, and drew a deep breath. 'The thing is... everyone's made out I was raised by Muggles after Voldemort- sorry, Ron- killed my parents, and I was. The thing is... the thing is, it wasn't my Aunt and Uncle.'

Silently Draco put his hand on Harry's knee. He knew, of course, but once he might have crowed about knowing first before the others. His mute support was worth more than Galleons.

Hermione surprised him, however, by nodding at once. 'I've thought so,' she said, satisfied and sad at once.

Harry blinked at her. 'You had?'

'You never get post,' she ticked off on her fingers. 'And even if they'd kept the Wizarding World a secret from you, there's a lot of Muggle things you don't seem to know about either, and I reckoned it was more than being raised out of Britain, which seemed the most obvious answer. So then I thought it must be some place very small, maybe in the country, but you said once you missed the noise of traffic at night or the stars aren't near so bright where you're from, so you must be from a city. And of course where you're from is a great secret, which is understandable, but you never slip and talk about your family the way you slip sometimes talking about your school before Hogwarts. I thought maybe someone had laid a spell on you to help you keep it quiet until we met Mr Lupin. That joined rather a lot of the dots, didn't it.'

'Wait, I thought Lupin was your teacher?'

'He was.' Harry's throat was very dry; he wasn't at all sure it was the right time to say all this, and in the Great Hall no less, but it was also curiously relieving. All his secrets had got very heavy lately. 'At a place called Crowhill. Crowhill, it's, it's a place for boys who- it's a boy's home, properly, a home for or-orphans.' He got the distasteful word out with barely a stumble, and came to a halt. There. He'd said it.

'Like... an orphanage?' Ron said uneasily.

'Well I'm hardly Oliver Twist, am I.'

'Who?'

'Are your relatives...' For once, Hermione seemed at a loss for words. Harry shook his head. Truth was one thing, but discussing the Dursleys was beyond him at the moment. And immaterial as well.

'Look,' Harry said, 'I didn't tell you to feel sorry for me. Lupin's a teacher at Crowhill, and he's the one who told me about wizards and Voldemort- sorry- and Sirius Black, but that's the point. Lupin thought Sirius Black was the one who gave over my parents to Vol- sorry, I'm sorry- to _him_ , but then I found out my dog wasn't a dog at all, it was Sirius, and he's the one who saved me in the Forest, and he was staying near the school to protect me, and I told Lupin that and I think he started to believe me, because the Aurors wanted him to get close to Sirius and do this thing with a bell but anyway Lupin refused. So now Lupin's been arrested and Sirius is out there alone and Mr Flamel and Draco's dad and Snape all helped me fool Quir-' He groaned at the familiar pain stabbing his eyes. ' _Him_ and he's coming here now, but while he was in my head I was sort of in his too, and that's the point. He's Voldemort, and he's coming.'

'Draco.'

It was Mr Malfoy. Everyone jumped, especially Harry, starting so badly his Quidditch hood slipped and a few heads turned to see Harry Potter sitting in their midst. He yanked it back up, but between a Harry-sighting and a school governor glowering down at them, they were drawing attention.

Draco let go of Harry and scrambled to his feet. 'Father.'

'Come,' Mr Malfoy said, beckoning. 'You'll be with me for the night.'

'But, Father, I would prefer to-'

'You would prefer to obey without silly questions,' Mr Malfoy snapped, and Draco blinked, taken aback. Mr Malfoy recovered himself with a covert look about, and drew a look of somewhat forced serenity about him. 'The Headmaster has generously provided me a private room given the circumstances. You will join me.' Mr Malfoy's eyes skipped over the children at his feet with the faintest curl of his lip, nodding grudgingly to Cedric, even more so to Neville, and omitting Ron entirely. Hermione warranted a longer assessment, but it was, in the last, Harry that Mr Malfoy couldn't seem to look at directly. 'You may say your farewells,' Mr Malfoy said stiffly, and angled away from Harry. His hand touched his breast pocket again, where he had the tincture Mr Flamel had given him stowed away. His throat bobbed in a swallow.

Draco gnawed his lip for a moment, as reluctant to miss out on adventure as Harry was to lose him from it. 'Good night, Potter.'

'Good night,' Harry echoed. Mr Malfoy seized Draco by the shoulder the moment he came near, drawing him in close.

'You have had more than your share of luck over the years, Mr Potter,' Mr Malfoy said, failing one final time to meet Harry's eyes. 'You will need an extraordinary dose of it still, I think.' He guided Draco away with an iron grip.

'Imperiused or not, Malfoy's all kinds of creeps,' Ron shuddered.

Imperiused. 'He was a Death Eater,' Harry recalled.

'I've been telling you that since the troll,' Ron declaimed with much waving of arms. Hermione smacked him for nearly swiping her across the nose.

'No wonder he's scared.' Ron looked uncomprehending as ever, but Cedric seemed to understand. Neville looked troubled, but said nothing. It was in that momentary lull that Dumbledore clapped his hands again with an echoing boom.

'Though I hesitate to interrupt such a congenial event,' he said, 'I must declare early curfew for all present. Settle in, students.'

Harry laid himself flat. A great deal of him itched to be out doing instead of laying here waiting, but he hadn't the faintest idea of what he would do even if he could. As the lights lowered, he picked at a bit of hangnail with his teeth, thinking increasingly circular thoughts.

'Harry.'

A poke at his arm brought him out of an uneasy doze. There were a few whispers here and there, but a bleary glance about told him most of the students had obeyed the order for an early night in and were already asleep. Professors Sinistra and Burbage were in quiet conversation by the Head Table, and Trelawney the Divination teacher was snoring in a chair, but the others had gone.

It was Ron who had waked him. 'Harry,' he whispered, and poked at him again. Harry pushed his glasses up his nose til he could properly see. Ron was holding something, sneaking it across the stones to the cover of Harry's sleeping bag. Harry inched out a hand to receive it, pulling it in toward his chest. It was his invisibility cloak.

'Figured best with us than not,' Ron breathed. The moonlight from the enchanted ceiling cast shadows on his face. Harry nodded his gratitude. He hadn't even been thinking about it before, but having it now made him feel better. It had a comforting smell about it, a bit of spice that he fancied might be what his father had smelled like. His father must have used it for all sorts of adventures as an Auror. Had he had it with him the night Voldemort had attacked?

Harry shuddered just thinking of it. Had that been real? A memory, or a dream, Voldemort killing Harry's mother? It had felt very real. He hadn't had time to really think about it- really feel about it, and he struggled not to even now. He didn't want to think about his mother's last moments, but behind his eyes the green light and her final cry summoned up his old nightmare. He had remembered, all this time. He curled his father's cloak to his chest and his mother's wand in a tight fist. They had had the cloak and their wands and still died, and they'd been full-grown wizards and Aurors besides. Harry was just a boy.

He wiped a bit of moisture away from under his glasses. He'd think about it all later. After it was over.

He fell into a fretful sleep straining to think of nothing at all instead.

* * *

The scream of the dying unicorn split the air for miles about, echoing through the night in a heart-piercing keen.

It produced an interesting effect on the rudely awakened students strewn about the Great Hall. Several began to weep before they were even fully aware of what had happened, it had that kind of unbearable sorrow to it even behind stone walls. Others groaned as if they themselves had been laid low, lifeless limbs twitching in shared agony. The high-pitched cries of frightened girls and not a few frightened boys spread panic through the Hall. Cedric sprang up from a snoring sleep to see to Hermione, who erupted in despairing sobs; Neville gagged and moaned and Ron sprang up and went charging for his brothers, throwing himself at Percy. As for Harry, he startled straight awake as if he'd never been asleep and rolled into a ball, curling around the fiery flare of his hand.

Rational thought returned to him slowly, and, some part of him knew, only when the unicorn had died. His hand felt as though he'd plunged it into lava or pressed it to a hot stove- the very hand he'd coated in unicorn blood, that day in the Forest. He hadn't known it then, but now there was only absolute certainty in his mind. Voldemort had come, and he'd found a way to draw them beyond the wards of Hogwarts.

'Be calm!' McGonagall was shouting uselessly, but there was no controlling this. Those who could run had done as Ron, and were scattering in all directions, some headed for the comfort of friends, some surrounding the professors clamouring for help, but the rest had gone for the doors, pounding with their fists and wailing.

And then came the second unicorn.

It was worse than the first, with so many already suffering. Harry didn't need to be told this was Dark Magic, the kind people like Ron and Lupin had warned about in dire tones since Harry had first become aware of magic. It felt Dark, it was the darkest feeling he'd ever felt, oppressive, smothering, like drowning in stink and slime. He didn't know if it could kill him, but he thought he'd go mad if it didn't.

Harry clambered onto his hands and knees. He swayed upright, tangled in his sleeping bag. His head was swimming, his gut churning. He stumbled through the crowd, tripping over his fellow students and being tossed this way and that whenever someone fleeing blindly slammed into him, but at last he made it to a window, and scraped at the frosted glass with both hands. He couldn't see a bloody thing. He pressed the tip of his wand to the chilly pane, unsure it would work but hoping will and desire were enough to get him one of his occasional queer results when he tried to force a spell along. McGonagall would chide him for his technique, but Harry concentrated all his urgency on it, and pushed it out through the wand. _'Lumos!_ ' he ordered the magic, and light burst out. But instead of spreading to fill the space around Harry, it beamed out like a handtorch, outside the window, lighting up the grounds beyond.

Almost as soon as he felt a surge of triumph, however, Harry lurched away with a queasy heave. A Dementor hovered right outside his window, and it turned to face his light.

 _Not Harry! Harry!_

Green light. Green against the black of night. She fell, she was gone, she died at his feet.

 _HARRY!_

Hands caught him up on the edge of a faint. _'Expecto Patronum!_ ' Tonks cast in a voice like steel, and a ghostly form galloped past Harry to splash against, through, the window, following the path of his Lumos and bursting head-on with the Dementor just outside. A voice that wasn't a voice screeched- he clapped an arm over his ears, Tonks protected him with her own body, wrapping him up. He was trembling as he clung to her coat, and let her lift him and carry him a few staggering feet away. Snape met them, taking on most of Harry's weight, and together they hustled him to an alcove behind the great hanging banners denoting Slytherin House.

'What- what was that,' Harry managed. His teeth were chattering. He felt, he realised, frozen head to foot.

'I haven't any chocolate,' Tonks said, turning out her pockets in a hurry. Snape only called for a house elf- Pearly, who appeared with a bar of chocolate, which Snape promptly forced on Harry, going so far as to shove a bite of it into Harry's mouth. Harry coughed and got a bit of it down, and the white fog of cold inside him receded a bit, fading enough to allow something like coherent thought back in.

'What was it,' he tried again, only to be force-fed more chocolate by the grim-faced Potions Master.

'The effect of Dementors can be stronger with some than others,' he said, biting the words off. 'They will affect you more because you have horrors in your past these others do not. Dementors are amongst the foulest creatures that walk this plane. They glory in decay and despair. They make excellent jailors because they drain hope and happiness from their prisoners- you might ask Black about it, during one of your cozy chats. You will stay well back from confronting one, if you are wise.'

That was a disturbing thought, but Harry hadn't the time for it. 'He's here,' he said, and ducked Snape jabbing the rest of the chocolate bar at him. 'And he's killing the unicorns. Won't the Dementors stop him?'

Snape took a long stare at the window. 'No,' he said slowly. 'I don't think they will. They feed on despair... pain... fear... he's just given them a feast. They can't breach the walls, not with Dumbledore here, but whatever dark spell he's created with the unicorns will turn this school into a reeking chum bucket for those monsters. No, I very much doubt they'll be any substantial obstacle for him.'

'We need to get rid of the Stone,' Harry said.

'Harry,' Tonks began.

'I can do it. I need to do it, don't I? Or he'll kill every unicorn in the Forest and when he runs out of them he'll do something else, something worse, and we're all trapped here by the Dementors!'

'It's what he wants you to do!' Snape told him harshly. 'Are you so foolish-' He grabbed Harry by the chin and turned his face up. Harry felt a peculiar probing at his eyes, and shook his head away.

'I'm me,' he said. 'For now.'

'Tonks!' It was Kingsley Shacklebolt, fighting off shrilly screaming students who tried to flood through the door as he opened it. 'With me. You too, Snape!'

'It's not safe,' Tonks told Harry in a hurry, talking over her shoulder as she sprinted off. 'Leave this to people better trained, Harry, there's no shame in that. It's our job to keep all of you safe.' She vanished through the door with Kingsley, who gestured fiercely for Snape.

'I can do it,' Harry said again, and reached into his pocket for his invisibility cloak. He shook it out and swathed himself in it, knowing he was, to all appearances, vanishing from sight. Snape's mouth twisted, bitter and pained.

'Damned if I do, damned if I stand still,' he whispered. 'Wait by the door, Potter, and for all our sakes' don't get caught.'

Harry raced off before Snape had even finished, not even indulging in the sight of Snape continuing to talk to the air where Harry had been. He would only have moments to get it right, he was sure. His first stop was the spot where they'd all been sleeping before- Cedric and Hermione were still there, Hermione somewhat calmer now, though with red eyes and blotchy cheeks and the hiccoughs as Cedric, looking pale beneath his shock of golden hair, rubbed her back. Harry yanked away the cloak from his face just long enough to gather their startled eyes, and said, 'Get Ron and Neville, we're only going to have one chance at this.'

'Chance at what?' Cedric demanded, but Hermione was quicker to conclude what was up, and jumped to her feet.

'Welcome to the Knights of Jupiter,' Harry told Cedric, yanking him to his feet. 'Be ready to run.'

His heart was pounding a mile a minute as he slid into place beside the big doors. Snape had contrived to linger for a quick exchange with McGonagall, who mopped her eyes with a kerchief even as she fixed a stern glare on the mayhem inside the Great Hall.

'Dumbledore?' Harry heard, as Cedric, Ron, Hermione, and Neville came creeping in, getting as near as they could without drawing notice.

'He can't call for Ministry reinforcements without opening the Floo network and exposing us all,' McGonagall reported. 'We sent off three owls, but they didn't make it through the Dementors, much less whatever's happening in the Forest. We're alone in this. I had enough of sieges in the war.'

The word 'war' seemed to do something to Snape. He rubbed at his left arm through his sleeve, and his lips were pressed together so tightly they were white. His dark eyes roamed the Hall, searching, maybe, for Harry. He shook his head slightly, to clear it, not to deny McGonagall.

'Hold the door,' he said. 'Don't want any of the little snots escaping.'

'Severus,' she sighed, but turned back to the crowd and began exhorting everyone to stand back. Snape opened the door, and departed through it, and, crucially, did not close it at his back.

'Now,' Harry hissed, and shed his cloak, throwing it up like a hanging blanket over the small sliver of space. One by one his friends leapt through it, disappearing like magic as they ducked behind the cloak. In the pandemonium of panic inside the Hall, McGonagall never even saw it happening. Harry hauled on the latch, shutting himself out into the corridor just as another wail set off. A third unicorn had been murdered.

'Let's go,' Harry said, and his Knights fell in at his sides as he ran for the grand stairs.


	25. Two Brush Strokes

_In Which Danger And Opportunity Meet._

Hogwarts was eerily absent all the usual cheer and noise of a school full to the tip with hundreds of students, the resident ghosts and ghouls, the chatty portraits, even the creaks and whistles of old winds lost in ancient stone. It was cold, cold all through as if every fire had gone out- as though no fires had ever burnt at all.

Neville's teeth were chattering so hard he could barely get the words out. 'Wh-whyzzit so c-c-cold?'

Harry knew before Cedric answered. It was the Dementors. It wasn't a real cold they were feeling, or not completely corporeal. They had sucked all the good and warm memories out of the castle itself. Hogwarts was fading, leeched of all its happy history.

'H-Harry?' That was Hermione, creeping past the others to Harry's side. She held back when he restrained her with an arm, but when he reluctantly allowed it, she poked her head beyond the corner to see for herself. 'What are they doing?'

'I don't know.' He recognised the spell as Tonks cast it again, conjuring a bright white light from the tip of her wand that swirled and solidified into an animal. All the members of the Order of the Phoenix were conjuring animals of their own- Bill Weasley's was a tall stork of some kind that stood on skinny legs, its long razor-sharp beak scissoring in a soundless caw, and Kingsley Shacklebolt's was a feral-looking cat with pointy ears and even keener teeth, and Elphias Doge's little spaniel ran a whirlwind through the legs of everyone standing by the Great Doors, and Snape's a delicate doe arching her frail neck and nuzzling sweetly at his hand.

'They're beautiful,' Hermione whispered. 'I think those are Patronuses.' Harry glanced for more, and she added, 'Well, I haven't had the time to read the whole chapter, but in Hogwarts: A History there's quite a lot about all the spells the Founders invented, and Salazaar Slytherin is the one who invented the Patronus. It's sort like a spirit animal, I reckon, it can do all sorts of things for you. His was a giant serpent- that's why all the Houses have mascots, you know. Slytherin's serpent, Hufflepuff's badger, Ravenclaw's eagle-'

'Godric's lion,' Cedric finished, and when Harry looked over his shoulder, Cedric managed a bit of a wink, though he was still pale in the dimly lit corridor where they were hiding. 'Always showing off, you lot,' Cedric said, and Harry smiled jaggedly with nothing but numb worry behind it.

They had to get to Nicolas Flamel. Harry hadn't expected him to be out defending the school with the Order, not if Flamel couldn't do magic- that would be suicide. Which meant Flamel would have got somewhere safe, and Harry would bet he knew the safest place for a Muggle and his Philosopher's Stone. Dumbledore's office. And given Dumbledore wasn't here plotting a run at the Dementors outside, Harry reckoned he knew, too, where the Headmaster would be. Harry was sure he could remember the way, after all the practise he'd had recently, but first they had to get past the lot of witches and wizards getting ready to spring an attack on the Dementors crowding Hogwarts' grounds. And if that worked, they would confront Voldemort, and Harry didn't even need to close his eyes to see his parents' dead bodies, pale and still and unmarked by the Killing Curse that had murdered them. He couldn't bear for anyone else to die like that. Not if he could stop it.

'Right,' Kingsley said, bringing everyone together. 'Hold close, vee formation, and drop back if you start to lose your Patronus. If we can get as far as Hagrid's hut, we can get a message out. Be ready- any chance, take it.'

'I don't know how long we've got,' Harry told the others in a hush. 'Be ready. Any chance, take it. We have to get to the Headmaster.'

The Order of the Phoenix sprang to action, throwing open the doors and bursting out in a wave of magic. The Knights of Jupiter were decidedly less impressive, a ragged group taking a terrified run past the doors as the Order threw them closed behind. Harry, glancing frantically over his shoulder as he streaked full-tilt beyond them, saw Dementors swooping hungrily for their one chance to break through Hogwarts' defences. Their skeletal hands dripping rotting flesh stretched eagerly through the-

'Sirius!' Harry shouted, reversing himself so quickly he fell, scraping his palm on the stone beneath him but barely feeling it, springing back up and sprinting back for the doors. A big skinny dog was wriggling frantically, keening a horrid whine as it tried to shoulder through the doors in their inexorable close. He would be crushed if he couldn't make it through! Harry hurled himself at the massive ring latch, wrapping both arms through the hoop and throwing his whole weight back. Ron was just behind him, and helped without having to be told, but Cedric was the one who thought to lever against the other door, taking an agile leap to plant both feet against the ironwood and his back to the other door, straining with all his might, blood rushing to his face and his thighs trembling as he locked his knees. Neville and Hermione both got handfuls of fur and yanked on Sirius, dragging him in even as the Dementors hissed in triumph. Harry looked up, shuddering, into the depths of the dark hood as frozen fingers gripped him by the throat-

Cedric fell, landing with a thump atop Sirius, who thrust him aside with rapidly growing human arms as he shed his dog form and surged upright. A wand trembled at the the tips of his fingers, levelled at the Dementors- no, at the doors. _'Confringo!'_ Sirius howled, and an invisible blast threw the doors shut with a thunderclap, rattling dust from the ceiling from the sheer force of it.

Harry skittered back on his knees, his arms throbbing hot and weak. His hands had swollen up. His throat had, too, where the Dementor had tried to- Harry wasn't altogether sure what it had been trying to do, but his head was spinning and his heart pounding insanely. He knew without being told that he'd only narrowly avoided something terrible beyond words.

'How did you get through them without a Patronus, Mr... er... Mr Black?' Hermione asked, and everything tilted back on the proper axis. Harry sagged in relief. Of course Hermione would be all undeterred by a little dash of horror and life-threatening danger, so long as there was curiosity to satisfy.

'They don't seem to notice animals,' Sirius said, 'or at least they've never done me.' Sirius lurched about to face the children. He was all over scratches, with a bloody bare spot showing at his scalp where Neville had taken a chunk of hair out of the dog, but there was more life in his eyes than Harry had ever seen. He looked stronger and brighter than ever. He put out a hand for Harry, helping him upright, and then offered the same service to Cedric. 'Sirius Black,' he introduced himself. 'You're not running screaming, so I gather Harry's mentioned me.'

Cedric took the rather filthy hand with only a momentary cringe. He made it to his feet with a bit of a stagger, and put himself between Sirius and the others not quite as subtly as he no doubt wished it to be done, but it was only wariness, not hostility. 'If you're here to help Harry,' Cedric said, 'then I'll reserve judgment on the rest til we're shot of this mess.'

'Good man,' Sirius nodded, a ghost of a smile dragging his bitten lips up.

'You all right, Harry?'

'Yeah.' Harry coughed. His throat felt burnt on the inside, though it was icy to the touch on the out. Harry wiped his aching hands on his jeans. 'Dumble-' He hacked and tried to gather enough saliva for a good swallow. 'Dumbledore-'

Hermione shrieked. Neville swooned, held up only by a quick grab from Sirius. It was another unicorn.

'Dumbledore,' Harry rasped, through the wash of sick pain emanating from his scar. 'You all stay. I'll go.'

'No, we're with you.' Ron was so white his freckles stood out like ink stains. 'We can do it. Have to.'

'Headmaster's office?' Sirius interjected. 'There's a shortcut. I can get you there.'

Harry was only barely congnisant of their trek through the castle. His head was fit to split wide open, and more than once someone else pulled him along when he began to faint. Somehow he kept his feet, letting them haul him in their midst, but the edges of his vision were black fog creeping up on him, and his ears had a hollow rushing, like the seashells Professor Lupin had brought to class once, to show them the sublime triangle. Harry had drawn spirals on everything for days, fascinated by the hidden angles he could only find with a straight edge and his imagination...

'Harry.'

'I didn't think you had a wand,' Harry said, snapping out of it to find himself crouched behind a statue, Sirius at his side, watching his friends dart across the dim corridor one after the other from behind a tapestry. Neville sprawled beside them with a gasp and turned to gesture Ron to follow.

'Remus.' Sirius twirled it between two fingers, then caught it flat in his palm. 'Feels good,' he said, catching Harry's eyes. 'I missed magic. Where is Remus, anyway? I didn't see him headed out into the din with the Dementors.'

'Arrested,' Harry said.

Sirius flinched. 'Because of me?' He stroked the wand gently, brows drawn tight and troubled. 'He always was a damn fool. I won't leave him there, Harry. I won't.'

There was no time for a reply. Hermione crashed into them, and then Cedric, and Sirius flicked Lupin's wand, a hazy light leaving the tip in a cloud and misting the wall. The spell settled in beads like morning dew on the brick, and everywhere it touched flared a faint grass-like green, a growing pattern that very clearly outlined a door. Sirius tapped it thrice, and said, 'Open Sesame.'

Hermione let off a startled giggle. Sirius winked at her.

'I'll go first,' Neville said, when Harry started to rise. 'No- listen. You don't know what's coming in there. If it's some sort of trap, or if the Headmaster's hurt, you need people who can fight properly. That's not me.' He brandished his father's wand sadly. 'Do what you have to do, Harry. I'll be all right, won't I.'

A spike of hurt flared in his scar. Harry touched it gingerly, and came away with bloody fingers. Neville gripped his wrist tightly. 'Good luck,' he told Harry, and Harry could only nod, throat tight all over again.

Neville stood, and put out a hand. It melded into the brick, then through it, and with a shuddery unhappy breath, Neville walked through the wall.

'Me next.' Sirius rose to his knees. 'You, the big one-'

'Cedric,' said Cedric. 'Cedric Diggory.'

'Amos's boy?' Sirius asked. He grinned crookedly. 'You take after your mother, and the better for it. Go with Harry, and stay ahead of him- angle to present your left, not your wand-side, and keep your wand low. Baddies are all flash and rage, and even the better duellers tend to aim at the torso or the head, where magic has the best chance of affecting you fast. You aim for the legs, jinxes and hexes- knock them over and keep moving. Get Harry to cover. You, love, and you're a Weasley if ever I saw one, you two scatter when you get in there- just don't scatter in the same direction. If all goes well, your friend will be waiting on the other side and no surprises, but no-one ever succeeds hoping for the best. Ready?'

It was a strange thing, even for a magic tunnel. Harry felt as though he were swimming and floating at once, and everything had a weird oily sheen to it, though what 'everything' was he could hardly have said. Not walls, surely, and what he walked on wasn't properly a floor- in fact Harry wasn't sure he was properly solid himself, but it only roiled his stomach to think about it, so he clenched what had once been his jaws and just concentrated on getting through it. Cedric was ahead of him, a constant pressure holding his elbow, and then there was light, growing brighter and brighter, and then-

And then a curse and a zap of deadly red light. Cedric shoved Harry, and he tumbled to the floor, taking a pratfall over a body sprawled beneath them- two bodies, Sirius and Neville both- he landed hard on his chin. Blood between his teeth and an awful sting told him he'd bit his lip on the way down, but he didn't spare the time to wonder: he scrambled to his feet and ran. Cedric was doing exactly as Sirius had told him, firing off a steady stream of spells, but he was no match for the wizard facing off against him. Lucius Malfoy dropped Cedric with a disarming so violent that Harry could hear Cedric's fingers snapping, and coolly dispensed with Hermione and Ron by conjuring a net that scooped them up before they could scatter as instructed.

'Harry-' Cedric cried, as ropes appeared out of the dark to wrap him tight. 'Harry, run-'

Harry ducked something that hurtled screaming through the air, flinging up his arms to protect his head. He swerved to avoid collision with the flying thing, and bounced off a bookcase, scattering delicate silver and glass in a resounding clash. Then arms seized him from behind, wrenching him off his feet, and he slammed to the floor amidst the shards of Dumbledore's beautiful instruments, with Draco sitting on his back.

'Harry!' Hermione screamed.

'Such noise,' Quirrell sighed. 'How tiresome, don't you agree, dear boy?'

Draco ground Harry's face down into the broken glass. Harry scraped his cheek against it trying to turn his head away from the pain. He could hardly see anything with his glasses hanging crooked off his nose and all the overturned furniture and books and things scattered on the floor like an earthquake had ravaged the place, but he could see well enough for this. Quirrell- Voldemort, the Dark Lord- sat in Dumbledore's throne-like chair at the big desk, and he was calmly examining the Philosopher's Stone in his hand.

 _'Accio_ wands,' said Lucius Malfoy, and Harry watched his wand fly from where it had fallen to Malfoy's hand, and all the other wands in the room besides, Lupin's and Neville's and Cedric and Hermione and Ron's, one by one stacking themselves in his palms. Malfoy bowed to Voldemort, and offered them humbly.

'Put them there,' Voldemort dismissed Malfoy, and rolled the Stone thoughtfully over his knuckles. 'Harry. My dear boy. Promise me to behave, and we can make this a pleasant conversation. But I do require good behaviour. I haven't the time to assign detentions, so I'll have to make do with rather more corporal punishment if you disobey me. I'm sure you wouldn't want to put your friends through that.' He paused. 'A verbal response, if you please.'

Draco eased off the pressure on Harry's head just slightly. Harry worked his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth. 'Yes,' he whispered.

'Join me, please.'

Draco climbed off him. Harry dragged himself to his hands and knees, bits of sharp glass digging into his skin and no avoiding it. With the scare of it over, the adrenaline of fight-or-flee left him shaky and blank, too blank to think what to do. He needed to think, but his thoughts were like so many Golden Snitches, dashing away when he tried to grab at them. Draco pulled at his arm, and Harry let himself be pulled upright. Draco met his eyes without expression.

'Traitor!' Ron hurled at Draco. 'I told you, Harry, he's a Death Eater just like his father-'

'Let go,' Harry said. 'Now.'

Draco's fingers slid free. He didn't so much as blink, and Harry met him stare for stare. Draco didn't so much as breathe til Harry turned his back on him.

On his own wobbly power, Harry held his head high as he crossed Dumbledore's office, picking a slow path through the wreckage. Fawkes chirped at him from atop a cabinet- it must have been Fawkes who'd flown at him, when the ruckus overturned his perch on the dais, but though the phoenix chided them all with furious trills, Voldemort ignored it with unruffled serenity.

'Where's Dumbledore?' Harry asked, when he'd come within arms' length of the man who had been his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. 'And Mr Flamel?'

'Occupied,' Voldemort replied blandly. 'It was rather clever of Snape, to hide someone in a Pensieve. He always did have a knack for creative solutions. I hope they're enjoying the memory I've chosen for them.'

'Is that... is that what you're going to do to us?'

'Now why would I put you where I can't use you?' Voldemort beckoned. When Harry didn't move, his eyes took on a flinty cast. 'Harry,' he warned softly, and raised his wand toward Harry's friends.

Harry moved before Voldemort could cast a spell. He closed the distance between them. He stood steeled and braced as Voldemort, smiling, reached for him, a finger extended towards Harry's forehead, brushing aside his fringe, and touching-

Touching his scar. Which ached, a bit, but not at all like the unendurable pain he'd felt in the Forest, when Voldemort had touched his scar the first time.

'Ah,' Voldemort breathed, his lips drawing back in a rictus grin, all teeth. 'Proof positive.' He traced the lightning bolt. 'Do you know what the Celts believed of a man marked by lightning, Harry?'

He managed a tight shake of his head. 'No. Sir.'

'Touched by the gods.' Voldemort took him by the chin. 'And I did mark you, didn't I. I chose you.'

'You killed my parents,' Harry said.

Voldemort nodded. 'I did, yes. And I very much intended to kill you, as well. Not even I know precisely what went wrong that night, Harry, and I don't believe you do, either. A mystery. I don't particularly enjoy mysteries. Mysticism of any kind- bothersome, isn't it. Anything can mean anything, and we fit supposed "clues" to match our desires where logic fails.' He tapped Harry's chin with his thumb, gazed at Harry's blood on his finger. Then he put out a blackened tongue to taste it, and laughed as Harry, revolted, cringed away.

Voldemort- he no longer even looked like Quirrell, not really, with red in his eyes instead of watery blue and mottled skin decaying over hollow cheeks, bloating like a corpse a week old- laughed as he rose to his feet, standing tall over Harry. 'My compliments to your Mudblood mother,' he told Harry almost tenderly. 'The blood wards were stupendously effective- so long as I intended to harm you. She never imagined I might want you very much intact- but then, such an elegant confluence of circumstance could surprise anyone.'

'Cir-circumstance?' Harry had nowhere backwards to go. Lucius Malfoy was there, and Draco with him. Sirius was groaning faintly- waking up? Could Harry keep Voldemort talking long enough for Sirius or Cedric to get loose, for the Order of the Phoenix to get a message to the Ministry? Harry wet his dry chapped lips. 'What circumstance do you mean?'

'Too many factors for you to readily understand, dear child, and far too many coincidences to believe it's the hand of fate, but elegant, yes, very.' Voldemort gestured to his stolen body. 'Quirinus Quirrell- he's barely a Pureblood, you know. One of the minor houses. No money, no influence, no particular skill. But ambitious. He made his way to Albania in search of fame and glory and he was eager, you know, almost embarrassingly eager. I needed a willing host, til I could regain my strength. Then it was a matter of arranging things... letting slip a few clues to the right ears, nosing about the black market for a few Dark artefacts that would alert the Aurors, ensuring Dumbledore's allies would catch the scent. Oh, yes, I know all about Dumbledore's little Order.' Voldemort sneered. 'All too easy, Harry, if one is patient, and I am a very patient man. I've waited decades for the smallest chance of surety, and in all those years I've had only one failure- you, not Albus Dumbledore. A few feints and mild threats were enough to manipulate the paranoid old fool. He brought the Stone into the open to "protect it". And who would he trust to protect it but himself? I knew he would keep it near to hand. Then it was as simple as arranging the position at Hogwarts. I had to eliminate the competition, but I did you students a favour ridding the world of one more incompetent. And I was a good teacher, wasn't I, Harry? I taught you well enough to defend yourself against me, after all. For a time, at least.'

Harry swallowed a bitter lump. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because I want him to know how very out-manoeuvred he was, Harry. I want him to know how very easy it all was- and how much I enjoyed playing him like a fiddle.' Voldemort chuckled. It didn't sound evil, and that was what made Harry shiver all the more. 'I've missed Hogwarts,' Voldemort added casually. 'I always considered this my home. I was an orphan, you see- we have that in common. Like you, I had nothing and no-one to claim as my own.'

'I'm nothing like you,' Harry spat.

'More than you know, Harry, you are.' Voldemort moved so fast that Harry, tense and waiting for the strike as he'd been, couldn't evade it. He seized Harry by the shirt and hoisted him off his feet, and then brought him down with a bone-shattering slam onto Dumbledore's desk, knocking the wind clean out of him and shooting stars through his head as his skull impacted. Limp and dazed, he could only lay there as Voldemort bent over him, his decaying face pressed cheek to cheek with Harry's, his slimy tongue lapping at the blood and glass from Harry's cuts. Voldemort breathed sweetly rotten breath on him. 'Ah, but not quite yet, Harry Potter. Soon. When I'm ready- he won't be able to hide you away from me, don't think it for a moment. When I want you, Harry, I will brush Dumbledore's feeble defences aside like so much tissue. _I will have you_.'

There was a light. There was a green light from somewhere, fuzzy, hovering there over Voldemort's shoulder. Limning him like an aura. Green light, like the curse that had killed his mother. Killed his mother. Killed his mum and dad, that dream Harry knew was not a dream, that scream. His mother's last cry, alone in the night with that green light the last thing she'd ever seen. Harry closed his eyes and summoned a lifetime's impotent rage. This man, this monster had killed his parents, and he thought he could threaten Harry. No.

 _No._

Not for nothing had Harry been at calisthenics all year for Quidditch. Not for nothing had Harry been taking extra lessons from Cedric about Defence- not for nothing had the Sorting Hat told him he'd do well in Slytherin, but put him in Gryffindor anyway.

Harry gathered every ounce of fury, and every ounce of strength, and he jerked his knee up as hard as he could into Voldemort's grotty bollocks. And as Voldemort howled and flailed and curled away from him, Harry grabbed his wand from the pile Lucius Malfoy had put on the desk, aimed at Voldemort's legs, and willed fire into being.

The hem of Quirrell's filthy teaching robe began to smoke. Then spark. Flames burst out of the heavy skirts and licked up dangling sleeves. Smouldering leather left dark prints in the stone as Voldemort staggered back. 'No,' he gasped, unwittingly echoing Harry. 'No- noooo, no, this isn't- _Finite- Finite Incanta-_ nooo, nooooo-'

The flame had caught his turban. He ripped it off, and it took a chunk of putrefying flesh with it. He looked up at Harry, red eyes bulging, and then he opened his mouth to scream. Fire leaked out his throat.

'No,' Harry croaked. He pushed himself up on his elbows, gagging, gone cold. This wasn't- this was- 'No,' he said, shaking his wand, but the magic had been cast, and there was no calling it back. Harry stared, revolted, aghast at what he'd done. Voldemort crashed into a bookcase and lurched back and forth crazily as the fire consumed him, thrashing with awful gurgling groans as Quirrell's blighted body disintegrated around him. 'No,' Harry said helplessly, as Quirrell's eyes melted through the charring hands clutching his head, and then he caught the edge of the rug and tripped over it, splattering flat like a pile of soggy leaves in Hagrid's garden, collapsing in on himself in a cloud of ash.

Harry watched Quirinus Quirrell and the Dark Lord who'd possessed him die, dead by Harry's hand.

* * *

Everything seemed very disconnected. Moment to moment, heartbeat to heartbeat. He ached, one moment, and in the next he was numb. Lucius Malfoy stood blinking, looking around him as if he emerged from a great fog, til his gaze fell on the body blistered and sizzling on the rug. Draco went to his knees the moment Quirrell died, with great gasping breaths as if he'd run a marathon. Cedric and Ron and Hermione were agape in their bindings. They stared at Harry like they were scared of him. Hermione was crying, silent and shaking.

He didn't recall finding the letter opener on Dumbledore's desk. He sawed at Cedric's rope til one hand came free, and then there was a gap again, and Cedric was kneeling over the others, slicing the net to free Ron and Hermione. Ron ran for their wands. 'Harry,' someone said, at the far end of a great echoing tunnel, and his head spun so that he wasn't sure he could- Sirius, Sirius was holding him by the shoulders, shaking him, slapping him. Harry said something, he hardly knew what. There was a ringing in his ears. An absolute absence of sound.

'He said something about a pensieve,' Hermione told Sirius, and a blank space later everyone had moved, like a chess board wholly rearranged. Cedric had hold of three wands, and he was guarding Lucius Malfoy and Draco with them, and neither protested at all. Mr Malfoy put his hand on Draco's shoulder, but Draco shook him off and huddled alone with his arms wrapped tight to his chest. Sirius and the others stood at the cabinet that held Dumbledore's Pensieve, and they were doing something, their backs to him, their eyes darting frequently back to Harry where he stood at- sat, Harry was sat on the edge of the dais, his hands limp in his lap, his mother's wand crosswise on his thighs. The tip was blackened.

Harry.

A weight on his knee. It was Fawkes the Phoenix. Fawkes cocked his head with a trill, and dropped something gold into his hand. Harry's glasses. Harry was always losing his glasses. He didn't remember losing them. He held them tight, so tight the lenses cut into his palm.

Harry.

Fawkes pecked at Harry's sleeve and climbed his arm claw by claw, til he had his favourite perch on Harry's shoulder. 'Chi-chi-chi,' Fawkes said, rubbing his crest against Harry's ear, and sussurated a soft mournful song. Harry wiped at wet on his cheek. His tears were tinged red, standing out in a smear on his knuckles. Chhhhi, Fawkes sang, just for him. Chhhhi.

'Harry!'

With a great racket of shouts and alarms and spells, Aurors burst into the office. They recoiled, when they saw what Harry had done. Even Tonks. She came a step toward him, then stopped. She flinched. Everyone did, when Harry stood. They parted for him. They stood well back from him, everyone rabbity and dismayed. No-one stopped him walking out the open door, riding the moving stairs down to the corridor. There was no-one at all to stop him all the way back to his empty dormitory, not even portraits. When he fell into his bed, Fawkes stood guard on the headboard, singing.

He didn't sleep til dawn brushed pink and orange against the bedcurtains, but at least he didn't dream.


	26. The Morning After

_In Which A Little Effort Goes A Long Way._

Madam Pomfrey released his wrist with a small sigh. Harry rubbed his pulse point, sure it was sluggish as lead in his veins, but the matron didn't even notate it on her parchment. Instead, she asked, 'Any headache?'

'No, Madam,' Harry said.

She glanced sidelong at Fawkes. The phoenix was perched on the chairback beside Harry's bed, proud neck arched almost ninety degrees so he could chew at a ginger biscuit and keep Harry in his sights. Fawkes gave off a cheery little bleat, dropping crumbs, but Pomfrey seemed to take that as a sign Harry was telling the truth. Fawkes had been serving as an honesty barometre all morning, and Harry was getting rather cross about it.

But, as it happened, it was true. There was almost a complete absence of sensation in his scar, unless he rubbed especially hard at it. But Pomfrey kept eyeing it with a bitten lip, and she'd asked a dozen times in a dozen different ways if it pained him. Little did- he was numb all over, and he hardly noticed the twinges when she picked slivers of glass out of his cheeks with small gold tweasers. She'd stripped him ruthlessly to bare skin and sat him in the hip-bath, scrubbing him gently but determinedly with a sponge and then she'd slathered him all over with a sticky paste that smelt like mouldy bread and she'd brushed his hair with a comb, fixing it in place with a charm. Then she'd dressed him like a doll, head-first and then both arms into a warm jumper, pants and pyjama trousers one after the other- he didn't have it in him even to blush- thick ribbed stockings on both feet, and then suddenly she'd put her arms about him and held him for a long minute, her breath shuddery against his ear.

'Is he ready?'

'I don't like this,' Pomfrey said plainly, but she let Harry go with only a quick swipe at her damp eyes, and knelt before him again to place slippers on his feet. 'They've no call to question him without a guardian.'

'Mr Potter's well-documented refusal to fetch them rather compounds the issue.' Snape stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his thumb rubbing rhythmically over his left inside arm. He had not looked once in Harry's direction, as if staring at the clock required all his concentration.

'He must have rights. An advocate of some sort.'

'He has,' McGonagall said shortly, rising from her chair. 'A student's Head of House can serve _in loco parentis_ as a representative of a minor child's interests. With Mr Potter's relatives unavailable and his godfather- unavailable- I will fulfill my duties. That means,' she told Harry, abruptly speaking to him and not the matron, 'I will decide what questions you do and do not answer, and my only responsibility is your safety and health, is that understood?'

Harry bobbed his head. No-one seemed happy with that, so he exercised his rusty voice. 'Yes.' Somehow, that made everyone look more miserable, putting more effort than ever into not meeting his eyes. Fawkes began to grumble and waddle on his chairback, so Harry put out his arm. Fawkes climbed to his spot on Harry's shoulder and nipped playfully at Harry's glasses. McGonagall put her hand on Harry's other shoulder, and with a small squeeze guided him for the door.

Chief Auror Scrimgeour awaited them in the Gryffindor common room. Harry supposed, idly, that the student body must still be confined to the Great Hall, because even in the middle of the night the common room had never felt so empty as it did now, mid-morning on a brightly sunny winter's day. When Pomfrey had come for him in his own dorm, Harry had been too confused and weary waking from an uneasy sleep to question the absence of his roommates, and Pomfrey had hustled him through examination and bath too quick for his sluggish brain to produce any actual questions. Harry was directed to the sofa with the mismatched cushions, though with the hearth gone out and cold ash the worn leather gave him the shivers. McGonagall sat beside Harry, regally looking down her nose at Scrimgeour, who stood scowling into a cup of weakly steaming tea.

'Help yourselves,' the Chief Auror said, motioning to the tray that rested on a stool. 'Though it's barely adequate. The bloody house elves are _wic wew_ this morning. You can hear them wailing all down the corridors.'

'They are as susceptible to the Dementors and dark spells as any creature,' McGonagall replied sharpish. 'Not to mention they sense the absence of the Headmaster.'

'That's as good a place to begin as any. Potter.' Scrimgeour paused, then said gruffly, 'Potter, fix yourself a cuppa. You look like death warmed over, boy.'

It took a bit of effort. Fawkes made everything three times more difficult than if he'd stayed out of the way, poking his beak at everything. Harry popped a cube of sugar into Fawkes's open maw, and that contented him. The tea was very weakly brewed, Scrimgeour was right about that, and by the time Harry had a cup of it most had spilled into the saucer and it was largely half-melted sugar and overmuch cream, anyway, but it warmed him a bit, halting his shaking. MchGonagall tapped a small pillow into place behind his back and slathered him a triangle of burnt toast with butter and marmalade, though Fawkes ate half of it and left a mess on Harry's pyjamas.

'Do you know,' asked Scrimgeour, when all the fuss had done, 'where the Headmaster is, Potter?'

'No,' Harry answered. 'He's not in the Pensieve anymore?'

'Something is in the Pensieve, which has been active all night. The question is whether it's safe for anyone to go in after him, if he can't escape it himself.'

'I don't know. That's what Voldemort- sorry,' he said, as Scrimgeour flinched just slightly. 'That's what Quirrell said.'

It didn't hurt, he noted dimly. To say Quirrell's name. Or even to think it. Not even a twinge. His hand shook again, though, all unaware there was no pain. Tea sloshed out of the saucer to stain his trousers.

'What did he say exactly?'

'That- I don't know, I don't- that it was clever, I think, that-' McGonagall rescued the cup before it rattled to the carpet.

'First warning,' his Head of House told the Chief Auror in very frosty tones. 'I won't give many.'

'Then you consign Albus Dumbledore to being lost,' Scrimgeour said just as bluntly. 'Potter, I need an answer to this. Take a breath and try to remember.'

He didn't want Dumbledore to be lost. But everything was all jumbled up in his head. 'He said it was a clever trick, I think. That... he hoped they were enjoying the memory he'd picked for them.'

'Dark magic,' Snape said, from somewhere behind Harry.

'Obviously, thank you, Professor,' Scrimgeour snapped, but contained himself. 'I'd prefer not to get the Unspeakables involved in this. They'll be ages plumbing the mystery of it and we might never see Albus again.'

'Or Nicolas Flamel,' added Snape.

'Can a Muggle even use a Pensieve?'

'Evidently.' Snape came out of the shadow enough to fetch himself a cup of tea, favouring Harry with an inscrutable look as he bent over the tray to pour. 'And Flamel might be a more urgent matter than the Headmaster. Unless Potter can confirm what's happened to the Philosopher's Stone.'

Harry glanced to McGonagall for clarification. 'It's missing, too?'

Her reluctant nod was overridden by Scrimgeour's cold response. 'Missing,' said the Chief Auror, 'presumed taken.'

'By who?'

'That's what I'd like to know, Potter. And you seem to be the only one who might be able to tell me, since Quirinus Quirrell's corpse has an air-tight alibi.'

'Second warning,' McGonagall said furiously, standing. 'For shame, deliberately provoking a child-'

'A child who killed, Headmistress. I have already made an extraordinary concession in conducting this interrogation at Hogwarts-'

'Interrogation!'

'-instead of the Ministry, yes, madam, and all the righteous indignation in the world doesn't change the fact that we have a dead man who claimed to be possessed by a Dark Lord and a bloody school governor swearing he only opened the Floo under Imperio and Sirius bloody Black locked in a broom cupboard-'

'Are you going to send me to Azkaban?'

Silence fell. McGonagall glared defiantly at Scrimgeour. Snape, standing at the tea tray and Harry's left, shifted just slightly closer to him. Scrimgeour grimaced heavily.

'No, Potter,' he said, and put his cup on the mantel with a clink. 'However irrationally rash it was of you to personally confront Quirrell, I have no intention of arresting you for manslaughter. The act was clearly self-defense.'

Harry felt only a dim relief at that. His throat had come over sore. He could hardly get a swallow of tea past the horrid lump in it.

'I can try to get the Stone back,' he said. 'I did it before. It's what I meant to do, not... not... what I did to him. I can go in the Pensieve. That's how I got it before.'

Scrimgeour looked to Snape for confirmation. Snape seemd to chew on it, before giving a jagged shake of his head. 'I am not an expert in this branch of magic,' he admitted with extreme reluctance. But that was nothing to the sour pout he wore forcing out the next sentence. 'But sending a child into a Pensieve awash with Dark magic is unacceptable. I shall go.'

McGonagall gave Snape a look of distinct surprise, but covered herself by putting on her most professional and censorious air. 'No-one is accompanying anyone anywhere til we have a much clearer idea of the danger involved,' she said. 'You're too valuable, Severus, and no Auror, if I need to remind you.'

'No- I am an advanced Occlumens,' Snape said with biting precision. 'A far more valuable skill in confronting magic manipulating memories than the ability to run and use a wand simultaneously. And I owe it to Albus. And as I have been recently reminded- sometimes one must weigh priorities to decide where one's honour is at stake. For better or worse, I'm staking my honour on you.'

'Me?' McGonagall spluttered, but Harry looked up in to the black scowling eyes gazing down at him, and knew exactly who Snape meant.

'I'm no more thrilled than you are,' Snape added in an undertone, but in truth he didn't seem all that angry, actually. If anything, the heavy lines by his eyes and mouth lightened, and he looked younger, as if a weight had come off him. His chin lifted high as he faced Scrimgeour, and folded his arms across his chest. 'Chief Auror, I will need an anchor. I'd hope for someone with at least two years' practise in Occlumency or Legilimency. I believe Auror Tonks is qualified.'

'The first thing I'm going to do when Albus is back with us is read him a lengthy lecture on using my Auror Corps as his personal-' Scrimgeour pulled himself up short. 'Fine,' he agreed shortly. 'At the least it keeps this situation contained amongst those who already know. But don't get lost in the Dark, Professor Snape- I've questions for you yet about what you knew of our friend Quirrell, and how you came to know what you knew.'

'By all means, fetch a barrell of Veritaserum. You won't learn anything other than what I've already told you, but you're welcome to my own store- Ministry verified, if you want a seal of authentic brewing.'

'Don't think I won't, Snape,' Scrimgeour retorted. 'Rest up, Mr Potter. I suspect we've got plenty left to hear from you as well.'

'I am quite sure you didn't just threaten to use Veritaserum on a student,' McGonagall interrupted coldly.

'I am quite sure such words never left my mouth, Headmistress.'

'Good.'

Scrimgeour forced a smile. 'Good,' he agreed, and turned an abrupt swivel on his heels to go, gesturing Snape to fall in after him.

McGonagall had Harry on his feet before the portrait had even swung closed after them. 'Poppy, stop listening at doors and come with us,' she called, and hardly waited for Madam Pomfrey to hurry down the stairs to join them. 'Now you listen to me, Potter,' McGonagall said, taking him by the wrist and hustling him along. Harry tripped at her heels as they exited the Gryffindor dormitories as well, though they turned left where Snape and Scrimgeour had gone right. 'There's much to do and very little time for it, so I won't mince words with you, Potter. The school's in chaos. We've got Dementors at our doors, the Forest is in an uproar over the murder of the unicorns, and the Ministry have placed us under emergency lockdown to keep a thousand murderous parents at bay once word gets out what's happened here. Rufus Scrimgeour's an ambitious man first and a fair man only second to that, and I don't put it past him to run rough over a little truth if it covers him in glory. He'll have plaudits to spare arresting Sirius Black, but even more if he can knock Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge off their pedestals in one blow.'

'Minerva, you don't think-' gasped Pomfrey.

'I think a man claiming to be the Dark Lord very nearly got hold of the Philosopher's Stone after Dumbledore bypassed the Wizengamot to hide it in a school full of vulnerable children. What's done is done, but it only takes one tip to Rita Skeeter to splash the scandal pages with enough blood to drown all his political enemies, and Scrimgeour will be ready and eager to step into their shoes.'

'But what can we do?'

'Be ready.'

'But-'

'The students are our priority.' McGonagall whipped her wand at a stairwell, and it swung toward them with unusual alacrity. McGonagall put her foot out confidently to thin air, and the stairwell swept to meet her. Harry had cause to be glad it obeyed so swiftly, since McGonagall pulled him along with her. Pomfrey had just enough time to make it on before the stairs moved on again. 'Man the hospital as you've been doing. Let no student say they had inadequate treatment. Once we regain contact with the outside world, reach out to St Mungo's and ask for a contingent of Mind Healers. Potter-'

Harry stumbled after her as they descended to the landing, on a path he now realised led to the infirmary. 'Professor?'

Her hand on his wrist squeezed tight. 'If it comes to questions, Scrimgeour will learn the truth about your relatives.'

'He'll... he'll make me go back, won't he.' Harry slowed without meaning to; McGonagall halted at the first tug of resistance. 'I can't go back there,' he said. 'Please.'

Her eyes dipped away. 'There may be no preventing it. You can only be ready, Harry.'

'No-'

'Potter.' She faced him solemnly. 'No-one wins every battle. But there comes a time in war when you learn how to cede ground, to fight another day. Daring, nerve, and chivalry- those are the traits of our House, but sometimes courage is about doing hard things, not brave things.'

Draco had said something like that, once. It didn't feel any better to hear it the second time. Harry hunched his shoulders miserably.

'Go,' McGonagall told him, and Pomfrey stepped forward to lead him the rest of the way, as Hogwarts' Deputy Headmistress strode off toward the Great Hall.

* * *

For once, Harry Potter walked into a room and no-one noticed.

It wasn't as bad as it had been in the Great Hall last night- only last night, he thought, though it felt a thousand years ago. In fact, it was almost hauntingly quiet. Susan Bones lay in the bed nearest the door, sniffling into a kerchief, and hardly stirred as Pomfrey bent over her. Next to Susan was one of the Hufflepuff prefects, wiping at tears of her own. Every bed, in fact, had at least two occupants, some three or four huddled together in silent misery, boys and girls, first years and seventh alike. No-one had been spared the torture of a unicorn's death. Harry's halting steps slowed, when he saw Millie, her face pale and tear-streaked, rubbing Crabbe's shoulder where he lay curled unmoving in a quilt.

'Oh,' he heard, and then Hermione launched out of no-where at him, burying her face in his neck. Harry breathed in her bushy hair, scented just a bit like roses, even after the night they'd had, and closed his eyes.

'I'm sorry,' they said at once, and Harry pulled back to stare at her.

'Why on earth would you be sorry?' he said, just as Hermione said that, too.

'Oh, Harry,' she said, and hugged him even tighter than before. 'Don't apologise. You did what you had to do!'

Harry couldn't. He didn't try, just shaking his head in the comforting curtain of her hair. 'Why would you be sorry?' he rasped.

'Sorry for you.' Fawkes cooed, and Hermione managed a sad smile. Her small fists dug into the collar of Harry's jumper, a little sweaty but not unpleasant, solid and warm. 'Oh, Harry. I'm so sorry.'

'Harry.' It was Ron, and Cedric came too, and they both shook his hand, Ron clapping him on the shoulder, and they led him to Neville who was resting in a bed, though he was adamant he didn't need it, having slept off the effects of being Stunned senseless already. Harry, familiar with Pomfrey's potions and their effects, chose to believe Neville, though he seemed a little wobbly yet. It was a wobbly sort of day. Harry had the wobbles himself, when he caught Ron glaring resentfully at the far corner, and saw Draco Malfoy sitting alone beneath the window, balled as small as he could be so that only a bit of blond hair peeked out over the arms covering his head.

Harry eased onto the cold tile beside him, tucking his slippered feet under his knees. Fawkes squawked and complained, but settled when Harry stroked his feathered chest.

'Hi,' he said.

Draco's shoulders heaved. 'Don't.'

Harry shrugged a little. 'Either you did it because your dad told you to, or because you were scared of Voldemort. If I were you, I reckon I might've done it, too.'

Draco's head came up so fast it creaked. 'No,' he said fiercely. 'Harry, I didn't- I didn't! I swear I- he-'

'Tell me.'

A fat tear gathered in Draco's eye. It spilled down a flushed cheek, but Draco didn't blink, his eyes wild and angry. 'He was in my mind,' Draco said flatly. 'He pointed his wand at me. He said a word- he said- he said-'

'Tell me.'

'I couldn't fight it. I tried. He was in my head. Harry.' Draco's voice dried up as Harry took his hand. Another tear fell, splashing onto Harry's wrist.

'I believe you,' Harry told him.

'Why?'

Trust a Slytherin to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Harry examined Draco's nails, all bitten to the quick and freshly bloody. 'Did he get your dad too? That Chief Auror said your dad said he was Imperiused.'

'He must have. I don't know. I was asleep.'

That was a lie. Draco said it confidently enough, as if he'd practised it over and over. It was too composed, but Harry didn't tell him that. The truth was that no-one could have slept through the unicorns being murdered, and the proof was all the students stuffed into the infirmary still suffering the effects. The lie itself wasn't the curious thing; it was what truth Draco was trying to cover with it that Harry wondered at. Like who opened Hogwarts' Floos to let Quirrell back into the school if Quirrell hadn't Imperiused Mr Malfoy til he was already inside. Or who had cast the Imperius on Draco, that carefully worded 'he'. Draco stared at him, desperate in more ways than Harry could truly understand. As awful as Harry felt just now, he wouldn't have traded Draco for anything.

'Here,' he said finally, and lifted Fawkes from his shoulder to Draco's. Fawkes nipped at Draco's pale hair, feathering it with his beak and emitting delighted trills. The harsh taut lines of Draco's face eased, just a little. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and pretended he hadn't. His knee bumped comfortably with Harry's, in silent thanks.

'Harry?' It was Cedric, and behind him Ron, Hermione, and Neville had come as well. 'Everything all right here?'

'Yeah,' Harry nodded. 'It is.' Ron squeezed in at Harry's right, and the others sat in a semi-circle around them, though it didn't escape Harry that they all regarded Draco with suspicious reserve. Harry had no energy to spare on bickering, so he made a point of keeping his hand in Draco's even with all them watching. 'What happened after?' he asked all of them. 'Did the Aurors get my invisibility cloak?'

'No, I did,' Ron said, nudging Harry for his attention and discreetly revealing the cloak, folded up as small as it could go, tucked inside his shirt. 'It was a near thing, they booted us out of the Headmaster's office fast as they could, after you... after you left.'

'Harry,' Hermione said, 'the Aurors arrested Sirius Black.'

'Arrested?' Scrimgeour had said something, hadn't he- everything had been happening so fast in the common room, he had hardly absorbed it. Locked in a broom cupboard or something like that. 'But they'll let him go, won't they? They'll know he helped us.'

'We tried to tell them,' Neville said earnestly. 'But Miss Tonks just told us it wasn't time for that yet. But no-one's come to ask any more questions about anything-'

'They asked about you,' Cedric interrupted gravely. 'About what you did.'

Harry's mouth dried out like a desert. Draco squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. Or maybe that was him, seizing up so hard his muscles all strained under his skin. 'Scrimgeour said he won't arrest me. That it was... it was self-defence.'

'Course it was!' Ron protested loudly, and glared to find himself hushed by the others. 'It was,' he repeated stoutly. 'We all saw, Harry, you had to do it.'

Even if he'd wanted to talk about it, no words would come. 'Sirius,' he managed. 'What's going to happen to him?'

His friends exchanged long looks. Cedric took reluctant lead, meeting Harry's eyes at last to say, 'I heard one of the Aurors say that with so many Dementors handy, wouldn't it be easier to just have him Kissed and spare the public the bother of a trial.'

'Kissed?'

'It's what makes Dementors so horrible,' Hermione explained quietly. 'Not just that they can take your happy memories. That they can take your soul. People who are Kissed don't die. They're just empty forever after.'

'So,' Ron prompted him.

Harry coughed to clear his throat. 'So what?'

'So- what are we going to do about it?'

'We... what?'

'Obviously you're going to do something,' Neville said. 'We thought about going ourselves, only we knew you'd go running off as soon as you heard, and, well, we're not sure where he is or what to do if we find him, we can't very well smuggle him out the school with the Dementors all around, that's as good as feeding him straight to them-'

'We could give him the invisibility cloak,' Hermione put in, as if she'd made this suggestion several times already and was still quite convinced it was the best solution.

'He'd still be stuck inside, and the Aurors will sweep the school if they find him missing,' Cedric shook his head. 'It's no guarantee.'

'The twins know all sorts of hiding places and secret passageways,' said Ron, 'we could keep him out of sight.'

'I reckon he already knows a lot of those himself, if he's been in the school before,' Draco said diffidently. His attempt at dignity was rather spoilt by Fawkes perching on his head like a ridiculous hat, wings half-spread and head twisted as he tried to eat a strand of Draco's hair. 'But if he tries to hide now, they'll just go on thinking he's guilty.'

Harry watched them all arguing. His Knights. Ron had a streak of dirt on his nose and Hermione's dressing gown was torn and Neville still looked white at the gills, and Cedric had nearly as many cuts and scratches as Harry from duelling Lucius Malfoy, and not a one of them looked as if they'd slept a wink, but every one of them was ready to go at his word. Even after what he'd done. Harry dug the heel of his free hand into his eye socket, displacing his glasses and then sticking them back on firmly. Right. Time to fall apart later, when Sirius was free and clear.

'Veritaserum,' he said.

'Veriwhat?' Ron asked.

'Truth serum,' Cedric said, eyes widening. 'Oh, Harry, good show.'

'What is it?' Hermione demanded. She always hated not knowing anything, and for once Harry was the one who knew something she didn't. He had, after all, spent a lot of time poring over the index of their Potions text, with Snape taunting him about his brewing.

'They use it in trials before the Wizengamot,' Cedric explained. 'But it's controversial. Some people say it's like a liquid Unforgivable, because it overrules your will. You have to take it willingly for it to be legal.'

'If Sirius took Veritaserum and told the truth about Peter Pettigrew, everyone would have to believe him.' Harry took his cloak from Ron, fingering the silky weave. 'And Snape told Scrimgeour he has some of it here. Ministry-approved. They'd have to believe Sirius, then. And if they don't... well... then I'll help him run. He's saved my life before. I owe him.'

'One problem,' Draco interjected. 'We've got to find Black before the Aurors find us.'

'Actually-' A grin tugged at Ron's mouth, irrepressible. 'I think I've an idea for that.' He eyed his fellows. 'All in?' he asked.

'All in,' Hermione answered firmly.

Ron put his hand out, palm open and flat to the ground. 'All of us.'

Cedric covered Ron's hand, beating Neville by only a moment. Hermione put hers on the pile. And Draco lifted his hand linked with Harry's, and placed theirs on top.

'Thank you,' Harry whispered.

* * *

'Ron, you're a genius,' said Neville.

'Yeah,' Ron agreed modestly. He bore a Cheshire grin, undimmed even by the chaotic din all around them. 'I just thought, you know, who's so obsessed with Harry they'll do anything for him, even if it breaks the rules?'

Hermione sniffed, crossing her arms over her dressing gown. 'The way wizards treat house elves is appalling,' she told them severely. 'It's no wonder they like Harry- he's at least polite- Ron, put that down!'

'I'm hungry,' Ron protested, through a mouthful of egg and watercress sandwich being served to him by a weepy-eyed house elf.

Ron's idea had been rather clever, Harry could acknowledge- the house elves could get to anywhere in Hogwarts, through locked doors and invisible doors and any other kind of door a thousand years of magic had imagined. But Scrimgeour had not been exaggerating how upset the staff of house elves were by events. It had taken several tries to get one to come when he called; he'd never called for one before and wasn't sure how to go about it, but once he'd started going through the names of every house elf he knew he got a wave of them appearing with little pops, filling up the loo in which Harry and his friends had chosen as their temporary headquarters. The problem was that many had appeared in a state of such distress that talking to them was difficult, if not impossible. It was several minutes reassuring them, and fortunately Cedric was a dab hand at conjuring handkerchiefs. This earned him nearly the same ecstatic adoration he got from the female students. Cedric was quite red with embarrassment as Mipsy and Dilly stared at him with their hearts in their eyes.

When at last the elves had calmed and Ron had stopped sending them back to the kitchens to fetch him food, Harry gathered their attention, and said, 'I need your help.'

'Oooh,' gasped Tippy, and a quiver of happiness went through all of them, their ears visibly pricking up.

'Really,' huffed Hermione, but not loudly enough to disrupt Harry's speech.

'You know there are Aurors in the school,' Harry told the elves. 'They're here to, er, to fix everything that happened last night, with the-'

'Don't say it,' warned Neville, 'they'll only get in a strop again.'

'The... things that happened in the Forest, and to the Headmaster and to us. To me.' He had to stop and breathe a moment, feeling stretched taut in his own body. He wet his lips. 'But they made a mistake. They accidentally arrested a friend of mine. Maybe you've even noticed him in the school? Sirius Black? Sometimes he's a dog.'

Jiffy put up his hand. Feeling rather foolish, Harry called on him. 'Jiffy remembers Sirius Black,' said the elderly elf, nodding importantly. 'He wore the red and gold. Troublemaker, that one. Maybe the Aurors don't make a mistake arresting Master Harry Potter Sir Just Harry Please's friend? Master Harry Potter Sir Just Harry Please hadn't ought to be friends with baddies and troublemakers, oh no.'

'But he's not a baddie,' Harry tried. 'He's a good man. He didn't kill anyone, he swears, and I think I can prove-'

'Kill!' Jiffy swooned at this. 'Naughty Sirius Black! Oh, he was a bad one, Master Harry-'

' _Please_ just Harry.'

'He steals,' piped up Nippy.

'He sneaks!' said Emmy.

'Always where he hadn't ought to be!'

'Nasty Sirius Black, always creeping after Professors-'

'He did that because I asked him to,' Harry cried, growing frustrated, and inadvertently plunging the loo into resounding silence. The elves stared at him. A few lips trembled, but Gimby was the one who broke first, falling into tears with a muffled wail as he buried his face into Cedric's kerchief.

'Master Harry Potter Sir,' Jiffy scolded him quite severely. 'The elves is _very_ disappointed.'

'It's not troublemaking,' Harry pleaded, rubbing his face and wondering how to explain. 'Sirius is my friend because Sirius- Sirius is a good man. He saved my life when the trolls attacked. He was watching Professor Quirrell for me because I thought Quirrell was up to something- and we were right. Quirrell's the baddie, Quirrell's the one who's been sneaking and stealing and doing horrible things.' Inspiration hit. 'Quirrell's the one who killed the unicorns.'

It was a calculated risk, given the very mention of it might launch the elves back into their noisy show of grief. He had underestimated them. As one, they stilled.

'Only the most terrible person could do that,' Harry said. 'And Quirrell is the most terrible, awful person. Was. But he's gone, and the Aurors don't have anyone to be angry at for all the bad things that happened, so they're going to blame Sirius. They'll give him to the Dementors. I can't let that happen. The elves know Hogwarts top to bottom and inside out- you must know where the Aurors are holding him. Please, please tell me. I just want to save him the way he saved me.'

'And get us into Snape's locked cupboard,' added Ron, sharing his plate of biscuits with Fawkes. 'Spares us getting caught trying.'

'Please,' Harry said.

This time it was Taffy who raised her hand. 'Master Harry Potter Sir? Wouldn't it be easier for us to get Sirius Black for you?'

Not even Ron had thought of that. 'Er,' Harry said. 'Well... yes, it would.'

Taffy beamed. And then without so much as a follow-up question she vanished with a pop, and re-appeared a moment later with a man trapped up in so many chains he could hardly squirm, gagged against crying out, though his eyes bulged over the rough cloth binding him. Harry fell on Sirius immediately, ripping out the gag, and searching for any kind of lock or tie in the chains. 'Cedric, _Finite_ them!'

It took the combined effort of all of them to cancel the magic that had conjured the chains; even six students were no match for a full-grown Auror's spells, but soon Sirius was stripping away the limp iron and staggering up to his feet. He was shuddering all over, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he shook his head back and forth, back and forth. As soon as he was free he threw himself to the wall, pressing his face to the brick and wrapping his arms about his head. 'Nononono,' he was hissing. 'No no no nonono.'

'Sirius.' Harry touched his hunched back, not surprised that Sirius flinched away, skittering into the corner. This was worse than Draco's hurt, which had cried out for comfort. The lively, laughing Sirius who'd flung himself into the adventure last night had gone as if he'd never been- as if he'd been smothered and broken beneath the Sirius who'd been a decade trapped in Azkaban slowly going mad. It was awful, and Harry ached with helplessness. 'Sirius,' he tried again, 'Sirius, it's Harry. You're all right. You're in Hogwarts with me.'

'Give him the Veritaserum,' Ron suggested uneasily.

'You want him compelled to tell the truth when he's in this state?' Cedric disagreed.

'Would calm him down at least, wouldn't it?'

'Sirius.' Harry tried again to lay hands on him, rubbing soothingly at the knobby spine between two jutting shoulderblades. 'He was awake,' he realised slowly, glancing back at the others. 'They tied him up and left him awake so he'd know he was trapped. He's had all night and morning to work himself up.'

'Oh.' Hermione came creeping forward on tip-toes. 'Mr Black? Sirius.' She bit her lip, and Harry could see the thoughts turning over in her brain, so clearly expressed on her face. Which, not a moment later, firmed in decision. She took a deep breath to steel herself, then put her arms about Sirius's shabby coat and hugged him from behind.

Harry tensed, anticipating Sirius would strike out, shove her back, hurt her somehow- he knew, none better, that Sirius didn't know his own strength. But it didn't happen. Sirius stiffened tight as a board, but his constant muttering died. Brilliant Hermione, Harry thought, and willingly followed her lead. He took his place next to her, wrapping Sirius up til he could feel those heaving ribs and furiously beating heart. And, bless them, next came Neville, tentative at first then bravely worming his way in, and Ron, blushing but determined, tall enough to reach over Hermione's shoulders, and Draco, who could only get close enough to stand sideways and tug on Sirius's coat. Cedric whipped up another of his kerchiefs, and when Sirius lifted his head from the wall in befuddlement, it was already on offer, needing only a little reach. Sirius wiped his face with it, shuffled about awkwardly in the hold of so many children, and his hand came down, trembling finely, on Harry's hair.

'You're real,' he croaked.

Harry nodded. 'We're real. You're all right. And, Sirius-' He swallowed, and said it. 'Uncle Sirius, it's all right.'

'Uncle, eh.' Sirius exhaled something that might generously pass for a laugh. 'I could get used to that.' Gingerly he turned about, shuffling in the circle of their arms. 'You, uh. You lot are right quick, aren't you. How did you...'

'The house elves helped.' Harry eased away enough to keep his balance, but kept both hands on Sirius, steadying him as the others let go and gave him a bit of breather space. 'Are you hurt? Do you need- could you get him something to eat, Jiffy?'

'Here,' Ron said, producing an apple, half a bap, and a pair of chocolate digestives from his pocket, ignoring Hermione's eyeroll. Sirius took the food with cringeing fingers, but tore into it hungrily, hiding his voracious chewing with Cedric's kerchief. Harry checked him subtly for injury, but Sirius was so filthy it was hard to distinguish dirt from bruises. Sirius avoided his eyes.

'He can't go out there looking like a criminal,' Cedric said. 'Even with the Veritaserum, those Aurors will attack on sight.'

'How much time you reckon we have til they realise he's gone?'

'Well, he's just disappeared from a locked room.' Neville shrugged at Harry over Sirius's elbow. 'We have until they get the Dementors gone and open up the Floo, I'd bet. Not long, they've been working at it all night.'

'Maybe a little longer than that.' They had til Snape got Dumbledore out of the Pensieve, Harry would bet. Adults hated anything to go wrong and they would want to make it look like Dumbledore had been safe and in charge all along. And then there'd be a lot of talking about that, no doubt, and only then, maybe, would they go looking for Sirius to transport him back to Azkaban or- he shuddered even thinking about it- having him Kissed by a Dementor outside. But Neville was right in that it wasn't near as long as Harry would have liked.

'Hot water and soap,' Harry said, 'and scissors, we need scissors, and fresh robes.' He chanced a look at the elves. He'd already asked a lot of them, but one more request to save a life was worth it. 'Can you?' he asked.

Jiffy put up his wrinkly chin proudly. 'Oh, Master Harry, we certainly can.'

It took all of them working in tandem, and all of them watching their mental clocks in crawling worry about the time, but with the elves helping it went faster and better than it might have done. Hermione took the scissors to Sirius's shaggy long hair and beard, and Harry and Ron wore a dozen flannels down to dingy nubs scrubbing ten years of grub out of Sirius's long bony limbs. Draco, Cedric, and Neville were heads together over the robes the elves had found, an old spare prefect's robe long abandoned in the laundry, and between them they removed the patches and the Ravenclaw blue stripes and got the hem lengthened, if unevenly, to fit a tall grown man. Hermione politely turned her back as Sirius dressed, but she was watching over her shoulder with a smile as Sirius faced himself in the mirror over the sinks for the first time.

'That's me?' Sirius stuttered, self-consciously touching his shorn hair. It had been so full of tangles and splits that Hermione had cut it back all the way to his ears. He wasn't quite the handsome boy he'd been in his school pictures, but he was recognisable for the first time as that carefree boy who'd been head thrown back in laughter in every frame. He was terribly thin, but in good robes instead of his tatty clothes he looked bigger, too, with broad shoulders to balance his height. There was no fixing his holey boots, but one of the elves, Twizzy, got the mud out with a spell.

'What now?' Cedric asked Harry.

He had gone over their options in his head as they'd cleaned Sirius up. 'Scrimgeour, he's the Chief Auror, he'll want to arrest Sirius no matter what. And I don't know about the Order, but I think they're a better chance than any of the teachers, because no-one will listen to the teachers if it comes to shouting and fighting and all that. Tonks might listen to us, but Scrimgeour's her boss, isn't he, so she could get in trouble.'

'Bill,' Ron said, concluding, just as Harry had, that a Weasley was their best bet. 'I can talk to him first, get him to come here. He works for Gringott's, not the Aurors. They can't tell him what to do.'

'Can you take him?' Harry asked the elves, and it was as easy as that. Fergy took Ron by the hand, and popped him away to fetch his brother. Harry let out a big breath. 'I hope this works,' he said hollowly.

'It will,' Draco said. 'You're Harry Potter. You're the hero.'

Harry wasn't that confident. There was no-where really to sit in the loo, but Harry had ants in his blood and was too twitchy to rest, anyway. He washed a few of the flannels in the sink before the elves, appalled, stopped him working on it, so he splashed his face with cold water and pushed his hair back off his flushed face. Oh. No wonder Pomfrey had been staring at his scar so much. It had gone quite red. It looked fresh as if newly inflicted, actually, and he thought it was longer- surely it hadn't always stretched from hairline to eyebrow? He didn't think it had. But when he touched it, there was no pain.

'Harry,' Sirius said, 'could we... is that a phoenix?'

'Yeah,' he said, brushing his fringe flat over the scar and turning away from his reflection. 'That's Fawkes.'

'He looks a bit peaky,' Sirius said dubiously, and he was quite right. Fawkes was making an odd hiccough sort of sound, if birds could hiccough- well, evidently magical birds could do. Fawkes stretched his neck and gave off a massive belch, making Hermione giggle and Neville gape. Harry reached out a hand to give Fawkes a little swat for bad manners, but Fawkes eyed his hand coming in, opened his beak wide, and spat up on him.

'Ew,' Harry began, disgusted to find half-masticated biscuit all over his arm, but Fawkes belched again, and this time there was something big stuck in his long throat. 'Fawkes?'

'Phwack,' Fawkes coughed, and choked up a big wet gob into Harry's palm. And right in the middle of that stinking mess sat the Philosopher's Stone.

'I don't know if you're too silly to eat rocks or too clever for words,' Harry breathed, staring at it. 'Fawkes, you brilliant thing.'

'Pfft,' Fawkes said, and began to clean his claws fastidiously.

There was a louder pop than usual, and Fergy re-appeared with Ron and Bill on either arm, bravely holding them separate as Ron tried to wrestle Bill's wand away.

Harry sighed from deep in his toes, and threw himself into the fray one last time.


	27. Little Death

_In Which One Seeks To Transform And Another To Mend._

'What is your name?'

'Sirius Orion Black.'

'How old are you?'

'Thirty-three.'

Harry huddled his hands into his armpits, trying to warm them. The loo wasn't cold, exactly, but he had a chill nonetheless, and despite the urgency exhaustion was dragging at him. He avoided looking direct at Sirius, too, uncomfortable with the de-spirited waxwork blankness of his godfather's face. It appeared the Veritaserum did more than secure the truth: he could see why it was, as Cedric had said, nearly an Unforgiveable. No-one willing looked like that.

Bill Weasley paced as if he couldn't contain himself, the physical opposite of Sirius who sat slumped as if his spine had sloughed off. 'How did you escape Azkaban?' Bill asked keenly, the heel of his dragon-hide boot striking whiplash on the tile, no harder than the grim cast of his face as he circled Sirius Black.

'Can't you just ask him if he killed the Potters and have done with it?' Ron complained, shifting back and forth with not-quite-discreet-enough longing glances at the stalls. There'd be no using the loo so long as Hermione was with them.

'He didn't kill them, You-Know-Who did,' Bill corrected, 'and I will ask that, but if you want this to stand up to the full scrutiny of the Wizengamot it had better be air-tight and thorough. I want the whole story before I stake my word on it.'

'I'm an Animagus,' Sirius explained dully. 'I had discovered many years ago the Dementors didn't seem to sense me in my Transformed state. I worked at the bars for months til I could squeeze past, and then I swam for it. I nearly drowned in the storm, but I washed ashore. From there all I had to do was evade the Aurors.'

'And how did you manage that?'

'They believed they were looking for a wizard, not...' There was a faint pause, the knot of Sirius's adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. Bill watched with narrowed eyes, mouth opening to speak, but Sirius finished with the slightest bit of strain hoarsening his voice. 'Not an animal.'

Bill fetched up against a sink, tapping his fingernails on the ceramic bowl. After a long minute of thinking, he said slowly, 'If I asked you direct about your Animagus form, you would be bound to answer?'

'Yes,' Sirius said.

Clink-clink-clink went Bill's fingernails. He looked at Harry, too, not just Sirius, and for the life of him Harry couldn't discern what Bill was thinking, but it was the grimest sort of maths, that was clear.

'Perhaps later,' Bill murmured at last. 'So you escaped and returned to Britain. What was your intent?'

'To find Harry. Only I couldn't, not without knowing more and wasting time, so I tracked Remus instead. He'd done a good job of erasing himself from the Wizarding World, so I went to his father.'

'And you tortured it out of him, I suppose?'

That was said drily, not seriously, but Sirius answered as if it were a real question. 'I broke in while the old man slept and found letters from Remus. Remus had been careful, but he talked about kids in his class. He was a teacher. He'd be a brilliant teacher, I just know it. He taught me all sort of Muggle things, from his mum.'

'Muggle things?'

'Like how to find people in the Muggle world. How to put together clues. I found him the way he found Harry.'

'What was your intent once you found Harry? What did you plan to do?'

'Plan?' Even sucked dry of all emotion that single word conveyed incredulity. 'I didn't have a plan. My whole life has been one idiot misadventure after another. If I'd had a plan I'd have raised Harry all along, not handed him off to Hagrid so I could chase after Peter.'

'Peter who?'

'Peter Pettigrew.'

'The man you killed.'

'I did not kill him.'

Bill leant forward intently. 'Say it again.'

'I did not kill Peter Pettigrew.'

'And the Muggles? The Muggles killed in the explosion?'

'I didn't kill the Muggles. He killed the Muggles.'

'Peter Pettigrew killed them, that's what you're telling me?'

'He shouted at me in the street. Accused me of selling out James and Lily. Then he caused the explosion. He ran away in the confusion, I saw him go down a grate in the gutter.'

Bill's ginger eyebrows met in a frown. 'Go down a grate.'

'He's an Animagus too,' Harry began, but Hermione hushed him.

'How did Pettigrew escape?' Bill said.

'He transformed to a rat. His Animagus form. He escaped down a grate. I don't know what became of him after, but the Aurors responded to the explosion and arrested me.'

'So you're saying Peter Pettigrew confronted you after You-Know-Who killed James and Lily Potter, caused an explosion and escaped from your confrontation. So as far as you know he's not dead?'

'He wasn't dead when I saw him last.'

'So Peter doesn't have anything to do with this.'

'He said he left Harry because he was chasing Peter,' Cedric broke in.

Bill didn't look too pleased with being interrupted, but reluctantly took Cedric's lead. 'You deliberately left to chase Pettigrew?'

'Yes,' said Sirius.

'Why?'

'Because Peter was the Secret Keeper. If James and Lily were dead, it could only be because Peter gave up his Secret.'

Bill's hands splayed flat on the sink, gripping tightly. 'Be very clear. Peter Pettigrew was the Secret Keeper, not you?'

'We switched,' Sirius said, and his eyes closed, his mouth sagging in a shadow of old grief. 'I thought it was a feint, to throw the Death Eaters off the scent. I don't know if he betrayed us before or after, but he did.'

'How did you know about the attack on the Potters, then?'

'All the Order knew. We had a hundred alarms in place. But we'd thought they would try to break through the wards- You-Know-Who cratered half the street to get at them. We didn't have time to respond.' Sirius's shoulders heaved, and his hands, limp in his lap, began to tremble finely. 'I was first on the scene. Maybe only moments after it happened. There were Death Eaters there, Dolohov, Rosier, Avery. Rowle. Rabastan and Rodolphus fled, the cowards, but I duelled with Dolohov. Took him out with Entrail Expeller, though he didn't die, more's the pity. I thought I'd have to fight the others, but they were dazed, or mad. I remember Rosier was weeping and clawing at himself. I went inside the house... James was... Lils... Harry was crying, I picked him up, I took him out of the house, but I suppose I was in a daze, too. I didn't know what to do or where to go. The Aurors were starting to come, and the Order. I wouldn't have given Harry up to someone I didn't know, but Hagrid arrived, and I knew I could trust him. I told him to get Harry to safety and I left. I didn't even know then for sure that You-Know-Who had been killed. I'm not sure I was thinking clear enough even to guess it. All I knew for certain was that Peter had betrayed us. It was all I could think. Peter had betrayed us.' His eyes opened, dull as tin in his gaunt face. 'Do you forgive me, Harry?' he whispered. 'I should have stayed with you.'

Harry's throat was too tight for words, and he had difficulty swallowing against the dryness there. No-one interrupted, not even Bill. Harry managed a nod. 'I don't know what I would've done either,' he croaked. 'It's all right.'

A knock at the door. Everyone jumped- Neville's feet actually left the ground; Hermione squeaked and clapped her hands to her mouth after. Bill scraped a hand through his long hair, fingering his wand as if tempted.

'I'll answer it,' he said, when Cedric took an uncertain step toward the door. 'Black, don't say anything just yet if you can help it. They'll want you to take more Veritaserum again, I don't doubt. Give it time to wear off safely.'

'Bill?'

'It's all right, Harry, you've done what you could-'

'Bill, I'm going with you.' Harry stood his ground when Bill shook his head. 'I am. It was my idea and my fault.'

'It's not your fault.' Bill softened, coming to crouch before Harry, his hand on Harry's shoulder as he gazed up. 'And it's not your responsibility. Tonks says you know about the Order, so I reckon I'm not letting the kneazle off the roof when I tell you the Order was formed for exactly this sort of thing. Let us take it from here, Harry.'

'He's right, Harry,' Sirius said. He blinked hard a few times, raising a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. 'This is between all of us who made the problem ten years ago. You've done more than enough. It's our turn, now.'

The second knock was followed by a jiggle at the latch. A muffled _'Alohomora!'_ later, it burst inward with a resounding slam. It was Tonks, and behind her Shacklebolt with his handmirror, wands drawn.

'Sirius Black, you're under-,' Tonks declared.

'We've got complications,' Bill told them, stepping in front of Sirius with his hand on his own wand, though it stayed holstered at his hip. 'Give me two minutes before you report the-'

'Ah-ah,' Kingsley interrupted. 'Can't dawdle on it,' he said, in his usual laconic way, but he looked at Sirius with bright curious eyes, eyes that drifted to Harry. 'Once we actually say the word we're carefully avoiding, that is.'

Tonks groaned. 'Harry, what'd you do now?' she sighed.

'Er,' Harry said.

* * *

It was all very well and good to say that, of course. Harry discovered right quick it was another thing entirely to sit still and let the adults do whatever they were doing where he couldn't see it for himself.

'Argh!' Hermione moaned, echoing his feelings precisely. 'What's taking so long?'

They'd been sent back to the infirmary, where Pomfrey, cross with being chastised for losing them for all it hadn't been her job to watch them, scolded them roundly and banished them to a corner on orders to stay or face detention for the rest of their natural lives. Neville had taken to checking the clock for operating correctly, unable to believe the minutes actually crawled that slowly. Cedric had checked on a few friends, but found his way back to them to hover annoyingly. Hermione tried to cajole Pomfrey into letting her fetch a book from the dorms, but no-one had let the students out yet and Pomfrey turned her down flat. Draco fed Fawkes most of his dinner, picking over the crusts unhappily. Ron just stared at Harry, who stared at his hands, trying very hard not to think.

'Mr Potter.'

'Sir!' Harry's sudden scramble to his feet dumped Fawkes off his knee and brought the others rallying around.

It was Snape. He looked rather worse for wear, his stringy hair plastered to his head and his robe dragging on the floor rather than billowing out behind him with its usual vigour. He looked very weary, his eyes puffy and his skin as sallow as Harry had ever seen it, but he was only the usual amount of irritable, and Harry took that as a sign of victory.

'You got Dumbledore out of the Pensieve,' he said.

Snape inclined his head in acknowledgement. 'He has been released, yes, and Nicolas Flamel also.'

'What was the memory they were trapped in?'

'That,' Snape said, 'is a private matter, and not mine to reveal. Suffice to say it was an effective trap and that only someone outside the Pensieve could have retrieved them from within. I am undecided if the Dark Lord expected me- someone to do so, or believed he had created an inescapable noose.'

'Sir?'

Snape sighed. 'That is a private matter too, Potter, at least for now. You have other unfinished business in play at the moment.' He eyed Harry crankily. 'I suppose you've been concocting all manner of poorly executed plans with Black all year.'

Harry dug his toe into a crack between stones. 'Not quite all year, Professor.'

A bitter smile twisted Snape's thin lips. 'It had to be Black, didn't it. It's been one of the few pleasures of my life to know he was suffering in Azkaban all these years. You honestly believe he's innocent?'

'We all do,' Ron said stoutly, coming to Harry's elbow. This, unfortunately, drew Snape's glare to Ron, who wilted as if it stung him physically.

'And just why exactly, Mr Weasley, do you find his story so persuasive?' Snape questioned silkily.

Hermione caught on first and trod on Ron's foot warningly, but not soon enough. 'Because of the Veritaserum,' Ron retorted smugly. 'No-one can lie under truth serum.'

Harry winced as Snape affected very broad surprise at this. 'Truth serum? Indeed. And where did you procure this wondrous potion?'

'In your- uh-'

Snape arched an eyebrow. 'Do go on. Or, on second thought, don't. I think it would be entirely entertaining to spend the rest of your Hogwarts career with the remainder of my pilfered potion in my pocket, just wondering when my hand might... slip... over your morning pumpkin juice, perhaps.'

'What's going to happen to Sirius?' Harry interrupted.

'Nothing. At least until the Minister for Magic makes a determination, on the recommendation of Chief Auror Scrimgeour.'

'And what is his recommendation?' Hermione enquired delicately.

'Drawing and quartering,' was the succinct answer. 'Scrimgeour doesn't like to be wrong any more than I do.'

'But he's innocent!' The whole of what Snape had said sunk in. 'They agree he's innocent?'

'The proof is not incontrovertible, but it appears to be pesuading the majority.'

'And you, Professor? You believe him?'

'I believe you,' Snape said. 'Miraculously.'

A tiny quiver in his heartbeat settled. Wordlessly, he reached into a pocket, and took out the Philosopher's Stone. He put it in Snape's hand. Wordlessly, Snape accepted it. His potion-yellowed fingers curled just slightly, brushing Harry's palm as he let go, and stepped back. Harry nodded to him, and managed a smile for the first time in a long time. Even more miraculously, Snape returned it. It wasn't much of a smile, not any more than Harry's, and even less practised, but Harry could imagine his mum being friends with someone who smiled like that more than with someone who'd forgot how to smile entirely.

'Slytherins,' Snape called then, turning away with just a brief incline of his head to Harry. 'Gather up. The rest of you as well. Your Heads of Houses will be returning you to your dormitories to collect your things. Your parents are being contacted as we speak and you will board the Express this evening at half-seven precisely. The Board of Governors have elected to declare the Easter holiday early.'

It didn't occur to Harry til he was trudging upstairs with all his Knights, _sans_ Draco who'd gone off first with Snape and Cedric who'd gone with the Hufflepuffs toward the Basement, that declaring an early holiday was code for emptying the school. Harry hadn't left Hogwarts for Christmas, but if they meant to truly close down now, and Harry didn't see how they could avoid it with a teacher dead and the Forest in an uproar over the unicorns and everything else, then every student would be expectated to vacate. And he had no means of getting from Kings Cross Station in London back to Crowhill, not with Lupin and his godfather both arrested.

Hermione had likely figured it out before he did, because she accosted him the moment they re-joined in the Gryffindor common room. House elves were vanishing trunks straight from the dorms to the Hogwarts Express platform, which left the students with time to say their good-byes- or gossip wildly, and most were engaged in the latter, increasingly incredulous theories being invented in all corners to explain away what little most knew of the events of the past few days. Some of the older students who knew more about the Wizarding War were coming awfully close to the truth about Sirius Black, but they all believed Sirius was the villain of the piece. Harry was glad Sirius didn't have to hear them speculate on all the terrible crimes the students were sure he had committed to get the school shut down. Harry himself was the subject of several beady-eyed conspiracies, and he dreaded the moment someone got their Gryffindor courage up to outright ask him. Hermione grabbing him away to claim a window seat at least put it off for a few minutes.

'Harry,' she hissed, cramming onto the old velvet cushion with him- it was one of the balistraria, not a proper window, for aiming your wand at the enemy on the castle grounds below, so it was a tight fit even for two first years, and cold besides. Fawkes squawked at her as he slid down Harry's shoulder in a great flapping of wings and landed in their laps. Harry held him there, stroking his spine to soothe him. 'Harry,' Hermione said again, gazing at him with worry. 'What are you going to do about going... well, home? For lack of a better word.'

'Crowhill is my home,' Harry replied gloomily. 'I dunno. I could ask a stationmaster at Kings Cross to ring them for me. They'll send a car. Eventually.'

'I don't mean the orphanage. Harry, eveyone thinks you live with your relatives.'

He felt the blood drain from his face. In all the excitement with Sirius he'd forgot what McGonagall had told him. That he might be sent back there. 'But Dumbledore's back,' he said, finding his lips oddly numb. 'And he- he knows.'

'He does?' Hermione sagged in relief.

But Dumbledore didn't. Not exactly. He knew the Dursleys weren't good people, that Aunt Petunia had lied a lot when she'd visited, Dumbledore knew about the cupboard under the stairs. But he didn't know Harry wasn't living with them anymore. He didn't know Harry had been abandoned. And he didn't know Lupin had found Harry and been looking after him at Crowhill, because Harry hadn't said that. He'd only confessed to knowing Lupin.

'Harry!' It was Ron, stumbling down the stairs from the boys' dormitories in his haste to get to them. Neville tripped along at his heels, and they bobbed and wove through the crowd of chattering Gryffindors to get to them, drawing no small amount of attention as they did so. Harry shrank back from it, clutching Fawkes to his chest.

'Harry,' Ron gasped, clearing the hurdle of an unexpected footstool that nearly felled him and banging into the bust of Nefertiti inconveniently placed too close to the seat Harry occupied. Only a quick wave of Hermione's wand saved it toppling over- no. It was Percy, who was closely followed by the twins, and for once Ron didn't glower at his older brothers, but waved them close hurriedly.

'Harry,' Percy said. 'Ron's being awfully cagey, which is never a good sign-'

'Says you need a place to stay-' began Fred, or possibly George, they were wearing the jumpers their mum had made them for Christmas and had almost definitely switched.

'-over the hols, and there's so many of us already you might as well,' finished George, or Fred, but Ron took up the reins in any case.

'I didn't tell them anything,' he whispered to Harry, covering the tickling hiss of his breath on Harry's ear with one hand. 'But you can't go back to Muggles after everything that's happened, and Mum and Dad really would take you, I know it.'

'I can ask my gran,' Neville piped up. 'She'll probably make us revise our classes the whole holiday, but it's better than... well.'

Hermione twirled her wand between her fingers thoughtfully. 'If they say you have to go back there, my parents could pretend we were just giving you a ride, but then you could come back with us instead. They mightn't realise til after school's back in session you never went... back there.'

'They said they were owling our families.' Fawkes was picking at Harry's Gryffindor badge, trying to pluck out a gold thread. His small ribcage was fragile in Harry's hold, but his heartbeat was immense for his size, a thrumming solid beat that kept Harry anchored amidst his whirling thoughts. 'So they know they're supposed to come get me. They'll kick up a fuss if I'm not there.'

Percy was frowning. 'Harry,' he said, and then put on his most imperious Prefect Face. 'I need to speak to Harry alone,' he declared, and didn't wait for the others to obey, which they most certainly wouldn't, based on the hearty round of protest his announcement kicked off. Percy just seized Harry by the shoulder- not without a blink of surprise to realise Harry was clutching a phoenix- and pulled Harry with him back to the stairs. They marched all the way up them, Percy guiding Harry along, til they reached the room shared by the fifth year boys. Oliver Wood was still sat on his bed, dithering over which massive playbook to stuff into his rucksack. He brightened to see Harry coming in.

'Oi, Potter,' he said, 'a little break gives us a chance to really polish our plays for the Slytherin match, don't it?'

'Honestly, Oliver, there's more to life than Quidditch,' Percy said, exasperated. 'I need the room a minute, do you mind?'

'I'll pretend you didn't utter those blasphemous words,' Oliver retorted, though he abandoned his bed readily enough. 'All right, Perce? Potter?'

'All right,' Percy answered for the both of them, and latched the door as Oliver nodded himself out. 'Sit down, Harry.'

He took the nearest desk, uncertain any of the older boys would want him on their beds, and fairly sure he didn't want to touch any of the mess of smelly undershirts, abandoned but clearly used pants, and the like. Of his dorm mates, only Neville was particularly neat, and Harry would guess the only bed that was made in this dorm was Percy's, but he was surprised someone as tightly wound as Percy could stand the disaster surrounding him. Oliver's bed was the worst, and plastered all over besides with torn-out pictures from magazines. Quidditch players flexed muscles, zoomed on brooms, cheered themselves on gloatingly, and thumped chests in victory dances from dozens of angles, even pinned to his curtains.

Percy didn't sit, however. He opened his mouth, shut it, then tried again, but got only so far as 'Er'. 'Er,' he said again, wet his lips, and blew out a nervous breath. 'Harry,' he said. 'Harry, why are your friends all convinced you shouldn't go home?'

'Dunno,' Harry said, stalling with a weak shrug of his shoulders.

'Does... does someone at home hurt you?'

'What? No.'

'You could tell me. I'm a prefect,' he reminded Harry, as if there was a chance of forgetting it. He tapped his badge. But what he said next was new. 'Whatever you tell me would be confidential, that means just between us, unless you tell me it's all right for me to tell the professors.'

Fawkes had given up on Harry's robe and was now trying to eat his shirt cuff button. 'I don't know,' Harry said, avoiding looking up. 'I don't know what you want me to say.'

'If you tell Professor Dumbledore he can-'

'Dumbledore put me with them.'

' _Professor_ Dumbledore, Harry, and he-'

'Does what he likes, doesn't he?' Harry shoved to his feet. 'I don't want to talk to Dumbledore, I don't want to talk to you, I just want to go- go- just- leave me alone.'

'Weasley, are you- oh, Potter.' Another timely interruption. It was McGonagall, who alone had the privelege of not knocking to announce herself in the dorms, though, wise and experienced in teaching generations of teenage boys, she'd kept her eyes averted til any scramble to conceal misbehaviour could be completed. 'We're going to lead the Gryffindors outside to the gates,' McGonagall told Percy. 'The Dementors have been called off, but there's still the possibility of unrest in the Forest. I want the prefects stationed at intervals with a few of the older students as well. The seventh year Defence students should suffice. We'll leave immediately.'

'Yes, Professor.' Percy's eyes slid over Harry, and he hesitated, but in the face of duty Percy wouldn't linger. Harry had no especial difficulty hunching himself invisible as Percy left.

'Potter,' McGonagall said quietly, and stopped him at the door. 'I'm afraid Fawkes will have to remain here. He can't be seen by Muggles.'

'Oh.' Somehow he hadn't thought of that. It was unexpectedly wrenching to give him up. Fawkes didn't like it, either, giving off a piteous cry and scrabbling to keep his claws in Harry's sleeve, but McGonagall deftly avoided his pecking beak and took good hold of him from Harry. 'He'll be here when you return,' McGonagall assured him- Harry, maybe, or maybe that was directed equally at Fawkes. It did little to cheer either of them.

'Professor?'

'Yes, Potter?'

'I can't just stay with my godfather, if they know he's innocent now?'

'Whether he is or isn't I don't know,' McGonagall said in that frank way that made Harry certain she was telling the truth, unpleasant or otherwise. 'But even if he is, he won't be walking out of Hogwarts in an hour a free man, all forgiven and forgot. There will almost certainly be a trial.'

'There wasn't before, Lupin said.'

'All the more reason for one now. And that could be months arranging. You'll be back to and gone again from the school in that amount of time, I've no doubt.' It was McGonagall who hesitated now, torn between duty and the secrets Harry had forced on her. 'I will visit during the holiday,' she said at last, growing firmer as she decided. 'You may inform your relatives. It will be unplanned, unannounced, and I expect to see you treated with the respect and restraint due any Wizarding child.'

Harry bit his lip against his immediate worry. Maybe the Dursleys would lie, maybe they'd be awful until she came to the door- maybe they'd be perfectly pleasant, who knew, but no matter what lay in store for him, it was his to endure. He couldn't quite swallow past the lump in his throat, but he nodded.

'Come, Potter,' she told him quietly, and Harry followed her out.

* * *

It was strange, being back aboard the Express. He'd been aflutter the first trip with the excitement of the unknown. He hadn't known then exactly what it meant, being Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. He hadn't known, then, what evil and danger and bad wizards and Dark magic meant. He hadn't known about Philosopher's Stones, or the Order of the Phoenix, or Sirius or any of it really.

His compartment was quiet, but for stilted conversation between his friends. Hermione wondered if exams would be pushed back because of the schedule change; Neville thought probably not, and Ron thought spending your holiday worrying about exams was silly. Draco pulled out his collection of chocolate frog cards, but gave them up after only a few minutes of listless sorting, and left without a word to anyone. He didn't come back for hours, but he had left his cards, so Ron took them up instead.

'He's got one of you,' he told Harry, as they chuffed past Edinburgh, the city glowing softly in the purple twilight haze beyond their window.

Harry took the card Ron offered. It wasn't a Wizarding photograph, the way most cards of modern folk were. It was an artist's rendition of him, probably taken from a photograph, because it looked recognisably like Harry at fifteen months, but the blazing lightning bolt scar on his forehead was exaggerated and odd, and had certainly never glowed like that. The brief biography of him wasn't as good as Dumbledore's. It read:

 _Hailed as the Saviour of the Wizarding World for defeating the Dark wizard You-Know-Who. Particularly famous for surviving the Killing Curse 31 October 1981. Harry Potter vanished from Wizarding Society on the very night his beloved parents, James and Lily Potter, were murdered by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Wizarding children celebrate the night of Halloween by casting a wish for Harry Potter, wherever he may be._

The mood at King's Cross was mainly confusion and worry as the students debarked. The prefects tried to keep things orderly, but before long a wailing second year pushed ahead of the queue and jumped to the platform, to be met by a desperate father, and then everyone was scrambling for any available exit, even windows. Harry, who had hardly been in a hurry to leave the train, hung back from the crush with his friends, trying to ignore the chaos.

'Oh,' Hermione said, standing up to the window, one hand on the pane, the other waving. 'It's my parents! They let the Muggle parents onto the platform for us!'

'Go,' Harry told her softly, though she tried to hide how much she wanted to run for them. 'It's all right.'

'There's Dad,' Ron said, joining her there, nose pressed to the glass. Harry caught a glimpse of a ginger-haired man, already standing with the twins who were talking both at once as he scanned worriedly for the rest of his boys.

'My gran.' Neville pointed out an old woman in a distinctly terrible hat, which towered over the heads of parents and students alike. 'She looks angry,' he added in sinking tones. 'I should... I should go before she's had to wait too long, or I'll really catch it.'

'Neville,' Harry said, and thought suddenly this was probably what had prompted Percy to question him. Neville grabbed his cloak and held it with white knuckles. 'Neville, wait-'

'Hey, all.' It was Cedric, appearing at their compartment door with a knock. He let himself in, but he wasn't standing there alone. He had a woman with him, clearly his mother; she was as lovely as Cedric was handsome, with golden hair and a warm smile that included all of them. 'Mum said I could have over some friends for the hols. Thought maybe you might join us for Easter, Harry?'

Harry made his decision with only a tiny pang for lost chances. 'I think I'll be busy,' he said. 'But Neville could come.'

Neville's head snapped up. 'Wh-what- m-me?' he stuttered.

Cedric caught on immediately, and nodded along as if he'd been planning that suggestion himself. 'Aces. You in, Nev? Maybe you could stay a few days, even? Dad has to work through the hols, it's right boring on my own.'

Neville looked almost shaky, but colour crept back into his cheeks, and as soon as he recovered himself he nodded vigourously. 'Y-yeah, that'd be brilliant. Brilliant, thanks, Cedric.'

Mrs Diggory smiled again. 'Lovely,' she said lightly. 'Why don't we go extend a formal invitation to your grandmother, then? Perhaps you could even join us for Easter dinner. I do so love having guests.'

Harry stood, putting himself elbow-to-elbow with Draco, whose eyes had fixed on something outside. 'Did your mum come?' he wondered.

'She sent the house elf.'

Harry craned his neck to see. It was the elf he'd met at the Malfoys' over Christmas- Digby? Debby?- and he stood alone, cringeing back from all the witches and wizards who were queuing for the secret exit off Platform Nine and Three-Quarters back into the Muggle side of the station. In his tattered tea towel the elf was barely noticeable, but for the absence of his mistress.

'It's all right,' Draco said gruffly, but his expression had gone shuttered, closed up. 'She won't make a public appearance til my father's cleared up whatever happened in the school. It wouldn't be proper til then.'

'That Pureblood stuff is stupid,' Harry said shortly, not inclined to indulge ridiculous manners at present.

'That Pureblood stuff just saved Longbottom from whatever it is you think you're saving him from,' Draco retorted. 'Lady Longbottom wouldn't let him out of her clutches for anyone less than a Pureblood Light family.'

'Come on,' Ron said, and took Harry's bag for him. Hermione took Harry's hand. Draco saw it, and glowered, and went out first, slamming his shoulder into the door and making the glass rattle as he passed.

'What got up his shorts?' Ron wondered.

'Ron, honestly,' Hermione snapped, flushing.

The only good thing about the Express arriving at the terminal in the middle of the night was that everyone was too tired to talk much. Harry met Mr Weasley, who shook his hand and pretended not to be overawed by it, and then Harry met Lady Longbottom, who did not shake his hand, looked down her nose at him, and proclaimed him to be skinnier than he ought to be. The Grangers were perfectly pleasant, a bit mystified by everything; Mrs Granger recognised him from Hermione's letters home, she said, but though she looked at his scar, she didn't say anything, and that was enough for Harry. He fell back voluntarily to the tail end of their crowd- they were amongst the last to leave the platform. He took a final look at the Hogwarts Express, steaming gently in the chill night air, and put his head down to walk through the barrier to King's Cross proper.

Keeping his head down helped him suppress the flinch when he heard a shrill voice say his name. Aunt Petunia had come.

Keeping his head down helped him stand his ground, when her bony hand seized him by the shoulder. Helped confine him to a mute nod when she complained about waiting all night for him. Kept him from shuddering away in disgust when she put on a show of oozing sympathy, when the other parents came near.

'Harry,' Hermione whispered, and hugged him hard. Ron thumped him, mouth twisted up in worry. Draco's house elf was hiding behind the pile of trunks on the handcart, his pointed ears perked as he kept out a watch for Muggles, but the lone station guard wore a glazed look of magically reinforced indifference and stared straight through them all. Harry transferred his gaze to Aunt Petunia's shoes. They were rose coloured with a spiky heel. They were pinching her at her ankles.

'Let's hurry home,' Aunt Petunia said. 'If we're very quiet we won't wake up Daddy and Dudley.'

Did they even know he was coming? Harry bit his lip against the stinging in his eyes. It would be what it would be. He could survive til he got back to Hogwarts. It was only a week. When Aunt Petunia pulled him along, he went with her.

At least until a new pair of shoes interposed themselves into his limited sightline. Aunt Petunia jerked to a stop, but Harry was already frowning. Those weren't Muggle shoes, like the oxfords Lupin wore or loafers or trainers. These had funny straps and a colour that didn't come from cow, a deep glazed aubergine, and Harry had been Wizarding long enough to know dragonhide when he saw it. He raised his head, eyes dragging up long trousers that met a knee-length robe of mulberry, belled sleeves hanging over claw-like hands that clutched at the handles of two canes of fancifully carved oak. Lyall Lupin's watery blue eyes met Harry's expectantly.

'About time, _bachgen_ ,' Mr Lupin said. 'This old body's not meant for standing about anymore.'

'Sir?' Harry answered, staring at him.

'It's a hotel for us tonight. I don't hold a wand well enough for Apparating, and I don't fancy a long drive in the back of a taxi what's left of the night.'

'Sir, I- a hotel- taxi- to where?'

'Home, obviously. Who are you?'

That blunt demand was directed at Aunt Petunia. She spluttered, quite offended. 'Who are _you_?'

'I asked first, I do believe.'

'I'm his guardian,' she spat back, straightening in her long wool coat and yanking Harry near.

'Not legally,' said Mr Lupin. 'Not as of-' Mr Lupin made a show of checking a watch pinned to his waistcoat. 'Five o'clock today. Goblin hours; you know they'll be up all night counting their gold, don't know why they have to close so early, but nothing for it. Fortunately, goblin contracts are notoriously brief.'

Hope leapt straight into Harry's throat, stopping up the exclamation that nearly escaped. He couldn't bear it if he were wrong, but he wasn't, was he? Goblin contracts, that sounded like the entail business Lupin had told him about, didn't it?

A sly little spark in Mr Lupin's eye was his confirmation. 'The name is Potter,' Mr Lupin said. 'Lyall Potter. And you've got your hand rather uncomfortably tight on my grandson.'


	28. Rhaid Cropian Cyn Cerdded

_In Which Home Calls._

Harry awoke to the sound of a crash, a shriek, and a robust holler for order. He had rolled out of his cocoon of blankets with his wand clenched in one fist and a hex ready on his lips when he realised the bleary smudges of the room surrounding him were not his familiar dormitory. He fumbled at the bedside table for his glasses, jabbing himself clumsily in the eye as he got them on, and blinked stupidly.

He was in the Leaky Cauldron. Mr Lupin- Mr Potter, now, though Harry had yet to verbalise it, much yet compass it entirely in his weary mind- lay snoring in the other single bed, oblivious to the noise, which came from, Harry discovered, their window, which Mr Lupin had cracked open last night to let in the cool night air. Harry shivered in his pyjamas, bare feet cringeing from the cold as he stepped off the rug and onto the unprotected wooden floorboards. It was bright and sunny outside, at least the bits of sky he could see from their height overlooking Diagon Alley. The Alley itself was in full thrum. In addition to the usual crowd of witches and wizards going about their business in the shops, there was some sort of commotion over a delivery of several dozen cages, which had evidently toppled over and released their contents. Violently pink creatures the size of rabbits were scattering in all directions, one even climbing a drainage pipe up the wall of the Leaky Cauldron. It bared its vicious fangs at Harry as it scrambled past his window.

A knock startled Harry out of his daze. 'Um, yes?' he called hesitantly.

It was Tom, the owner, barman, hotelier, and, evidently, the cook and servingman who let himself in, bearing a large tray of covered dishes. 'G'morning, Mr Potters,' the old man lisped, grinning a jack-o-lantern smile full of missing or mis-aligned teeth that nonetheless conveyed great good cheer. The tray floated to a small table set against the wall beneath a painting of several stentorian types in fussy robes engaged in a vigorous game of Exploding Snap. Tom mopped at his sweating bald head with a lace kerchief as the dishes sorted themselves into two piles, cutlery clinking into place and a candle lighting itself. 'Great pleasure, great pleasure, Mr Potter,' Tom said, exactly as he'd done the night before, when Harry, almost numb with exhaustion, had let his hand be clasped and shaken repeatedly. He did so again now, but Tom didn't linger at it, apparently a mark of pride in his personal professionalism, for he departed with his now-empty tray a moment later, shutting the door behind him with a crisp thump.

'Don't wait on me, boy,' said Mr Lupin, who had waked after all in the commotion. 'You look as though you haven't had a proper meal in ages as it is. Don't care for the food at Hogwarts?'

'No, sir, it's very good. There's just... there's just been a lot to be getting on with.' Harry hesitated, then took it on himself to bring his own pillows to Mr Lupin's bed, tucking them into place as Mr Lupin struggled to sit upright. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

'I would do, thank you.' Mr Lupin sipped the contents of a small phial of green sludge and a much larger one of oily brown globs suspended in an opaque jelly. 'Four sugars,' Mr Lupin requested, grimacing, 'plenty of milk, there's a lad. Doesn't quite cover the taste, but anything's better.'

Harry rather overfilled the cup and it sloshed onto the saucer as he carried it carefully back to Mr Lupin's bed. Warm hands covered his momentarily, and Mr Lupin thanked him gruffly. 'Eat,' Mr Lupin directed him, so Harry did, seating himself at the table and lifting the lids from the dishes to discover a full rack of toast with little pots of jam, a plate piled high with greasy rashers of bacon and thick slabs of ham, a proper fry-up of mushrooms and tomatoes and eggs and a big slop of beans and several knobs of black pudding, several kippers and curried rice, fried bread, a dish of sausage eggs, and a whole apple charlotte pudding glistening with caster sugar. It was enough food for a whole family- a whole family for a whole day. Harry took bites of everything and was full well before he got to a second round. Mr Lupin ordered him to drink a full glass of milk atop that, and by the time he tottered off to the en suite for a wash he was almost sleepy again with the effort of digesting so much.

He emerged to find Mr Lupin fully dressed and donning a long cloak of pale spring green, a colour complimentary to the robin's egg blue of his suit and matching boots. He looked quite natty, with his sparse hair slicked back and a fresh shave. He turned a disapproving eye on Harry's hair, which had gone more nest-like than usual after tossing and turning what had been left of the night. 'Wear your best,' he advised Harry. 'We've a few visits to make before we leave Diagon Alley.'

'Are you, er...'

'Certain potions can lend these old bones enough strength to accomplish what needs doing.' Mr Lupin settled himself with a stifled groan at the table and with shaking hands spooned selections from every dish onto his plate. 'My son has had reason of his own to become acquainted with certain disreputable Potions Masters- if they could even claim the name.' He turned an eye toward Harry as he refreshed his tea. 'There's no point in family secrets now,' he added. 'I won't pretend RJ's perfectly well if you won't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.'

Harry diverted his eyes to the business of digging out the good clothes Sirius had given him for Christmas, stuffed to the bottom of his trunk. 'I know,' he admitted softly. 'I'm sorry.'

'He's a good boy, my RJ. I'm proud of him.' Mr Lupin eyed Harry sidelong, shoulders defiantly tight. 'Even if he did go and get himself arrested over that good-for-naught Black.'

It was Harry to lift his chin in defiance, this time. 'Sirius is innocent,' he said stoutly. 'He proved it under Veritaserum. There's going to be a new trial and everything.'

They stared at each other for a minute. Then, quite as suddenly as that, Mr Lupin nodded his acceptance and went back to his food. 'Well, then. For my son's sake and for yours, I shall hope so. Get dressed, my boy. Much to do this morning. RJ wrote me a list as long as the Mumbles, thinks I'm that daft. We've got our tasks, both of us, to finish what he started.'

So with Harry in the nicest of the clothes Sirius had got him, a pair of dark trousers (wrinkle-free, thanks to a charm performed by Mr Lupin) and a tweed jacket with brown leather patches at the elbows and buttons of heavy gold and shoes that were so new they squeaked with every step, they paid up their room and had Tom hold Harry's trunk and set off into the Alley. It was early afternoon, Harry discovered- he'd never in his life slept so late, even if the Express had got to London nearly three in the morning- and he was unsurprised to see headlines in the _Prophet_ speculating luridly about Hogwarts' sudden and early close. Mr Lupin paused long enough at the news stand to purchase a magazine printed with purple ink on stiff broadsheets, and checked something toward the back, snorting to himself. He thrust the magazine at Harry.

'What's _The Quibbler_?' Harry asked, following as they set off again.

'Generally good for a chuckle, that, and not much else,' Mr Lupin opined. Walking was quite difficult for him, and sweat already gleamed at his temples, but he moved quickly for a man so reliant on his crutches. 'That old quack Xenophilius does stumble on good information here and there, however. When I sat the Wizengamot- many years ago, now, I gave it up when RJ was a boy- it was quite the tradition to side-step the main publications and leak the more inconvenient truths to rags like that. He must have rushed the presses all night to get that story out.'

Harry checked the contents page. It was buried between articles proclaiming 'Secret Agency Hunting Alien Lifeforms Repels UFO Invasion: Cardiff' and 'Queen Elizabeth: Squib Or Squid-Monster?', but, sure enough, almost banal in its normality, was a headline reading 'Anonymous Source: "Dumbledore Missing In Action, Sirius Black FOUND; One Dead In Connexion Unicorn Murders".

'Nothing about me,' Harry muttered, relieved more than he could say, when he had skimmed the article frantically for his own name or any variation on Boy Who Lived.

'Likely there will be, sooner than later,' Mr Lupin said, dashing cold water on that momentary respite. 'Not an ounce of respect for the truth, that lot. Hence our hurry today. The sooner we finish this, the safer you'll be. There- Gringott's.'

'I thought you said the paperwork was done?'

'They decided the entail in my favour, sure enough, but only that. I may have bluffed it a bit, with your aunt. All's not etched in stone yet.' Mr Lupin canted a sly little smile at him. 'I've got you, and that doesn't count for nothing, but we'd best have everything else in order by the time someone coaches her into a legal challenge. RJ tells me you play Quidditch; think of this as having the Snitch in hand, but not the points you need to win the Cup.'

Harry considered this as they queued to visit Harry's vault in the goblin bank. The goblins seemed intent on ignoring Harry, this visit, which only struck him oddly when he realised they'd been standing in wait long enough that Mr Lupin's knees were knocking together with the effort of keeping upright. Harry worried at his lip, then heaved out a breath. He broke away from Mr Lupin and ducked under the velvet rope confining them to a rigid lane in the lobby. An elderly witch gasped at his temerity as he trotted toward a desk, but that was nothing to the glare he was getting from the goblin who stared him down.

'Could you please maybe open another desk to move the queue along?' Harry asked.

The goblin blinked. It had eyelashes like barbed wire, gnarled and spiky surrounding its black beady eyes. 'No,' it said, and took a placard from its drawer that read, in no uncertain terms, 'Next Register'.

Harry glowered, since the goblin didn't even pretend to go away, but continued at his writing in a large ledger as if Harry weren't still standing before him. But he went. There were plenty of other goblins, after all.

'Could you please put out chairs?' he asked the next goblin.

'No,' it said, and put up a placard.

'Could you please at least tell us how long it will take?' Harry demanded of the third one, and slapped his hands onto the desk where the placard was already descending. 'Excuse me.'

'No,' said the goblin.

'No you can't tell me how long it'll-'

'No excuses,' said the goblin, and left the placard balanced on Harry's knuckles.

'Mr Potter.'

Harry turned, ignoring the clatter of the placard hitting the floor. 'Mr Griphook?'

Gringott's general manager inclined his head to Harry stiffly over the bristling wings of his cravat. 'You recalled.'

'Yes.' Harry hesitated. 'I still don't have a key,' he said carefully, 'but I was hoping you could take me to my vault again.'

'I could,' Griphook told him, 'but there would be little point to the venture.'

'Why?'

'Because the contents of your vault have been removed to another.'

Harry went cold. 'To my relatives? To Dumbledore's?'

Something odd happened to Griphook's brows, which hung over his eyes like icicles dripping from the eaves of a roof. 'No, Mr Potter. On instruction from your godfather, your funds were transferred to the Black vault.'

'My...'

'Harry.' It was Mr Lupin, who couldn't duck the velvet rope but could blast it aside with his wand and come stumping towards them, his crutches clacking like thunder on the marble floors. Griphook scowled.

'Sirius moved my money,' Harry blurted.

'Well.' Mr Lupin's face relaxed. 'RJ will be pleased. That's one less worry.'

'You knew?'

'I knew he tried. That's my boy for you. Multi-tasking, they call it. He must have had it from his mother, for he never learnt it from me.'

'Mr Black's owl reached us with instructions,' Griphook explained, and Harry finally figured out what was happening to his face- it was a goblin's manner of smiling. It glittered with malice. 'Albus Dumbledore's owl also reached us.'

'Albus Dumbledore has no authority as regards the Potter vaults.'

'So said Mr Black. As the primary account holder, naturally he has the authority to determine who has access and who does not. Unfortunately for Mr Black, he has previously used that authority to grant Albus Dumbledore the key, and Albus Dumbledore has chosen not to return it.'

Mr Lupin did not look the least bit pleased with that news. 'And what exactly did Dumbledore ask for, with this owl of his?'

'That no action be taken without consultation and consideration.'

'With a member of the Wizengamot who has no blood relationship with the boy?'

'The highly influential Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot who has the power to determine which bills are floored for vote. Such as an upcoming renewal of a protective tariff favourable to my bank.'

Harry slumped. But Mr Lupin's narrowed eyes made him think, too, and he said it aloud as quickly as he realised. 'But you moved my money anyway.'

'You are also highly influential, Mr Potter.'

His stomach sunk again, as if the brief rise had never occurred. 'What do you want from me?' he asked dully.

'Nothing you have not already given.' Griphook reached his claws gingerly into a pocket in his double-breasted suit coat. A folded bit of paper emerged, and Griphook extended it across the distance between them. Harry took it. It was newsprint, an article clipped from- Harry recognised it as soon as he saw it. It was an article from the _Prophet_. He unfolded it and turned it a few times til it faced upright and legible.

Oh. It was an older article, as it happened. **HARRY POTTER ADVOCATES REVOLUTION, CHAMPIONS GOBLIN MINISTER!** trumpeted the headline. Harry wet his lips. 'I have to tell you the truth, Mr Griphook,' he said quietly. 'I didn't actually champion a goblin for Minister of Magic.'

'I doubted you did, Mr Potter. You are a half-blood raised in the non-magical world. It was clear at our first meeting you had no experience of the magical world, nor of magical creatures such as goblinkind. It would be most extraordinary for you to have formed such a radical opinion so rapidly.' Griphook paused. 'That does not mean, however, you won't form it over time.'

'You... want to be Minister?'

Griphook showed his sharp teeth in a rictus grin. 'I wouldn't rule it out. But I am quite content for you to merely to speak your questions aloud when you have them.'

'Preferably near a reporter's quill?' Mr Lupin added acidly.

'Preferably,' Griphook echoed, his grin wider still. 'Now. An escort to the Black vault would be in order, I believe. While we travel, Mr Potter, and Mr Potter, I'd like to tell you about our high-yield venture capital promotion...'

* * *

With Harry's bottomless pouch strained to the limit carrying a truly incredible amount of gold Galleons, Mr Lupin led Harry out of Diagon Alley into Muggle London. 'My wife was a Muggle,' Mr Lupin confided, as he hailed a taxi somewhat stiffly. 'RJ's better at this than I am. She used to take him into Muggle cities- Bangor, Cardiff, Manchester. She wanted him to know his heritage. I can't claim I took it very seriously, shame on me.'

'It's not that scary, not really. Just loud, a bit. And bright.' Oddly, though, Harry found the noise and bustle a bit relaxing. It reminded him of Crowhill, the constant rush of vehicles on the street beyond the fence, and the press of people in familiar Muggle clothes, kids dodging up the lane in trainers and jeans, men in suits shouting into their mobile phones. 'Er,' he said, 'we'll have to pay with pounds, not Galleons.'

'RJ always leaves some at the house.' Mr Lupin fumbled in his pocket, nudging the coins about on his shaking hand. With a grumble, he thrust his hand at Harry. 'You do it,' he said, clearly embarrassed to be found lacking. Harry said nothing at all as he sorted crumpled notes into a stack of fives and tens and the coins into two and one pounds. By the time a cab pulled up to the kerb for them, Harry was ready to provide both the address, whispered by Mr Lupin, and their payment.

The Ministry for Magic Headquarters in Whitehall was a grand building in the Muggle tradition, or so Harry thought as they were let out by their driver and stood on the corner. Every building was very grand, everything white or dun so that the bright red splash of colour as buses rolled past stood out like blood. A few bare trees dotted the landscape, but the crowds of Muggles hurrying this way and that in their dark winter coats seemed like ants crawling below the looming colonnades and towers.

'There,' said Mr Lupin, and stumped up the lane to a telephone booth. He yanked on the accordian door, which screeched as it wrenched open, and gestured with one of his crutches for Harry to go in. Harry took down the receiver on its long metal cable, fishing out a twenty p coin. 'What number do you want me to ring?' he asked.

Mr Lupin came in after him, forcing Harry to step closer to the phone. 'Six two four four two,' he said, shutting the door behind him and enclosing them snugly.

'That's not a full number, sir.'

'It's the number we're wanting, though.'

Obediently Harry dialled, depressing the cold buttons one after the other. 62442. He turned with the receiver, holding it out. Mr Lupin put it to his ear.

'Harry Potter,' Mr Lupin said a moment later. 'And Lyall Potter. To visit the Auror Office.'

Harry jumped as the change return chute rattled. He poked at the flip door. There were two badges. They had the names printed on them just as Mr Lupin had said. 'Pin it for me, boyo,' Mr Lupin asked, and Harry affixed a badge to Mr Lupin's lapel, and his own likewise. No sooner had he hooked the pin than the phone booth began to shake and shudder. Harry grabbed for the rattling glass walls as the floor dropped out from under him- no, as the booth itself began to fall. Lower. He stared at the pavement climbing the walls as they sank, til all the weak London sunlight was vanished and they were in a dark tunnel.

'Steady on,' said Mr Lupin.

'Where are we going?'

'To the Ministry Headquarters.' Mr Lupin nudged at Harry. 'A Lumos would go a long ways, child.'

'Oh. Sorry.' Harry fumbled his wand out of his pocket. He swished it and cast the light spell, rather too brightly at first, clenching his fist about the glowing tip til he properly lowered the intensity. He couldn't see out the sides of the booth, now, but it didn't seem there was much to see, anyway. Til the movement beneath his soles halted abruptly, and a tall crack appeared, light from the outside spilling in, as they were let out from the booth into a huge lobby of some sort, proper as a Muggle lift.

'The Atrium,' Mr Lupin told him, removing a phial from his pocket and struggling with the stopper. Harry took it gently, and pulled it free. Mr Lupin got most of it down in a swallow, brushing away a greenish drip from his lips. 'Best behaviour,' he warned Harry hoarsely. 'Bound to be a bit of a to-do, and we'll want for calm on our end of business.'

'Yes, sir.'

They registered their wands with a bored witch who perked noticeably at Harry's name and stared openly at his head, clearly seeking his scar. Harry flattened his fringe uncomfortably, ducking her eyes, and thus noticed the wizard who stopped dead in his tracks, on espying Harry, and abruptly took off running in the opposite direction.

'Off to owl someone in a hurry,' Mr Lupin guessed, sotto voce. 'Friend or foe, I wonder.'

They had another trip by lift- it went backwards, forwards, and sideways as well as up and down, and Harry was quite nauseated by the time they stepped off again- to the second level. Though they were clearly undeground, Harry didn't know if second level was closer to the top or the bottom, he was that turned about. The Auror Office was a big open room with a ceiling of bronze tile, dark over the ubiquitous white marble tile that seemed to define the floorspace everywhere in the Ministry. Witches and wizards in red Auror robes worked in cubicles with half walls surrounding their desks, only about a third of which were occupied. There were rooms lining the sides of the Office. Some had placards reading 'Work Room' or 'Conference Area' or 'Magic Dampening Arena', but far more ominous were the rooms labelled 'Interrogation'.

'Can I help you?'

Mr Lupin inclined his head to the middle-aged Auror who had stopped their progress. 'My son is in holding,' he said. 'I've been told I can speak with him.'

'Name?' she asked, summoning a roll of parchment with a flick of her wand.

'Remus John Lupin.'

Her eyes tripped upward, for a moment. Then slanted down at Harry. They widened slightly. 'Ah,' she said, a sort of cross between clearing the throat and trying to cover her slip. She officiously checked the scroll. 'Yes, he's here, and allowed visitors. I can direct you to a room. We'll bring him up for you. Would you- ah-' She glanced at Harry again, and again pretended she hadn't. 'I'll bring you a pot of tea.'

Harry did not have much patience for his wait. Mr Lupin was looking terribly weak, slumping in his chair to rest his head back against the wall, one hand on the table wracked with tremors so that he could hardly hold his tea. Harry hooked his heels about the legs of his chair, gripping the seat beneath him til his muscles pulled tight and tense, then standing and checking out the frosted glass window to see if any of the shadows of people passing might be coming near. The Auror had brought a plate of digestives as well tea, but Harry had only one bite before confirming he wouldn't be able to eat any of it. He crumpled it to crumbs on a serviette, smearing his fingertips with chocolate.

The turn and click of the latch was like thunder. Harry launched to his feet again, but stood frozen in place as the door opened, and Professor Lupin came in.

'RJ,' Mr Lupin murmured, and the taut lines of Professor Lupin's face relaxed into a tiny smile.

'Da,' he answered, and circled the table. He bent and pressed a kiss to his father's temple. 'You look a sight. You should be in bed.'

'Fine way to talk to a man flitting all about town on your business, isn't it.'

'Thank you,' Professor Lupin interrupted quietly, and Mr Lupin huffed and hunched and took his son by the collar, yanking him down for a one-armed embrace. But then Professor Lupin raised his eyes and took Harry straight with his pale gaze, and put out his other arm.

Harry buried his eyes in Professor Lupin's rumpled shirt. Professor Lupin hugged him close, and rested his chin on Harry's hair, his arm wrapped tight and secure about Harry's shoulders.

* * *

Professor Lupin listened mutely as Harry talked. They were alone for it; Mr Lupin had stepped out, to chase down paperwork he'd said, and Professor Lupin seemed to know what that meant, but Harry didn't ask. He crumpled another biscuit, and another after that, and mushed the crumbs back into lopsided balls. He had to go back several times as he remembered things Lupin hadn't known, like how Harry had met Mr Flamel even before Lupin had gone after Sirius and then been arrested, and that led him even further back to how he'd suspected the Philosopher's Stone had been hidden at Hogwarts, because of what the men in the Forest- he knew, now, it was only one man, Quirrell and Voldemort possessing him- had said about it, and the unicorn blood, and reading about it with Hermione, and how he'd thought as long back as Christmas that Quirrell was the one behind all of it. He told Lupin about the dreams. He told Lupin about suspecting Snape. He told Lupin about Fawkes, and Sirius, and the Knights, and the Dementors, and Mr Malfoy, and how they had lured Voldemort to Hogwarts and it had gone so wrong, so wrong. How he'd convinced Snape he could secure the Stone, and he'd gone to Dumbledore's office with Sirius and his friends, and Voldemort had been there in Quirrell's body, and-

And. And how Harry had killed him.

Professor Lupin was mute even after Harry had gone quiet, for a long time. He held Harry's hands, loosely, something he'd moved to do when Harry had started to talk about the scream he heard when Dementors came near, his thumb occasionally stroking over Harry's knuckles. He sat forward, now, mouth opening and then shutting.

He said, 'When I was a boy, a little older than you, I hurt someone.'

Harry glanced up, caught. 'You did?'

'Another boy in my year. I'd like to say it was an accident. It was, in that moment, an accident, or at least something I couldn't control. And it was awful. It was all the more awful because I couldn't understand- I couldn't understand how something so awful could be allowed to happen. Because it was at school. Hogwarts. My friends should have stopped it. Dumbledore should have stopped it. Or God. I wanted-' His voice went dry as a rasp. 'I wanted to die. And, worse, I told my parents I wanted to die. I think that more than anything was the worst of it. The look on their faces. What I'd done to them in that moment with the truth.' Lupin's thumb made a circle about the round of Harry's fingernail, bitten ragged. 'I'd never seen my father cry. He was angry and shouting when I told him, but later, that night, he came to my room, and he was crying. He said, as a father all you want to do is keep your child safe, but part of you thinks- it's good he's scared. You never want him scared, but it's good he's scared, in a way, because he'll believe you now when you tell him the world is full of frightening things that can hurt him, too, and he'll believe you when you tell him how to be safe.'

Harry bent his head. There was wet in his eyes, and Lupin holding his hands prevented him wiping it away, so it leaked out, down his cheek. 'I'm sorry,' he tried to say, but it got tangled up on his tongue, impossible.

'I know. That look's haunted me many years now.' Lupin left his chair, and came to kneel beside Harry's. 'But let me tell you what my mother said. My mam, she was always a bit fragile, you know. She was there, but not always _there_ , and there were times when I desperately wanted her in the now, with me, holding me, helping me, and she couldn't. It took me a long time to understand that. Because I had been the thing that tested her, you see. But she told me about being frightened by the bad things, being too frightened to live in the same world as the bad things, and she said- I don't want that for you.' Lupin reached up to brush the hair away from Harry's scar, and tenderly brushed away the tears on his cheek. 'I don't want that for you, Harry.'

'I hate what I did,' Harry whispered in aguish, more tears squeezing out his burning eyes. 'I can't stop thinking about it.'

'It will get easier. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it will. And until it does, let us help you. Promise me?' Lupin used Harry's wand to conjure a kerchief, and put it to Harry's nose. 'Blow,' he said, as if Harry were a very small child, and between an awkward attempt to obey and embarrassment at the absurdity of it, Harry ended out snot-faced and laughing, and Lupin smiled.

* * *

The ivy-covered cottage in Beddgelert was just as Harry remembered from his first visit the summer past. The hills surrounding it were barer, true, the trees shorn of leaves after the winter and spots of white lingering where snow had yet to melt in the thin spring sunlight, but the burble of the stream nearby and the puff of smoke from the chimney and the calming chatter of birds and insects were impervious to the seasons and, altogether, calming. Harry sat on the back portico wrapped in an old blanket of scratchy Welsh wool, watching the sun rise and thinking of nothing in particular with great relief at being able to do so.

The sound of a car on the road didn't immediately alert Harry to their visitor. The cottage stood well back from the road and was, Professor Lupin had told him before, not exactly invisible to Muggles, but not of interest to them either. It was the best way to handle mixed magic and Muggle communities, where neighbours might be curious enough to drop by and inadvertantly discover dishes washing themselves, or rooms that didn't precisely obey the laws of physics, or children flying on brooms rather than sweeping with them. Harry was deep in contemplation of the shape of a cloud overhead, trying to decide if it were more like an elephant or an especially fat horse when boots in the dirt path snapped a twig. He scrambled to his feet, reaching for his wand.

' _Bore da_ ,' said the rosy-cheeked woman puffing up the path. Her breath steamed, her thick coat damp with dew, her headscarf flattening her grey curls. ' _Sut mae?_ '

'I, er... I'm sorry?' Harry asked, hesitating. She didn't look threatening, but she definitely looked Muggle. Her wellingtons were well-used, cracked and muddied, and she had a Muggle wristwatch that winked at the left and carried a pair of plastic grocery bags from Morrison's.

And she looked at him in like suspicion, til suddenly her expression cleared. 'Oh, you're RJ's boy,' she said, a bright smile erasing her scowl. 'Aren't you darling? I've heard all about you for months, love, it's wonderful to meet you at last!' Harry found himself enveloped in an embrace, quite unexpectedly, and stood awkwardly as she clucked over him. 'Barefoot? Haven't you any slippers or socks? Well, inside you go, let's get you warmed up.'

She knew her way inside, that was clear, letting herself in through the back door to the kitchen. Harry followed warily at her heels, but when she deposited her bags in his arms and directed him to unpack, he obeyed. Just as he was working up the nerve to ask who she was, she clucked. 'Oh, I'm that daft,' she said. 'You won't know me from Eve. I'm Glynis Owens, everyone calls me Glynnie, I come every other day to keep house and make meals for Lyall. I came up yesterday and the house was empty, I thought he must be in a bad way, but if you're here all must be well. Is RJ here, then? Usually he rings me up if he's visiting.'

'No,' Harry said quietly. 'Professor Lupin's... he's not here.'

She shed her coat onto the back of a chair. 'That's a shame. He's a good one, that RJ, even if he must live so far away. Always comes back once a month, don't he, to stay a week with his old da. And believe you me, love, a week alone with Lyall Lupin is a trial and a test and then some.' She smiled as she opened the cold cupboard. 'Don't be shy, now. We'll cook up a big breakfast and have a little chat as we go, shall we? I want to hear all about you.'

'Er, miss-'

'Glynnie.'

'Glynnie,' he repeated uncomfortably. 'Do you know about... about...'

'Magic?' she said carelessly. She chuckled at his expression. 'I know enough, though I'm not one of you lot. My brother married a witch, quite a surprise that was for the lot of us. I've a niece your age, in fact, she goes to that school, what's it called?'

'Hogwarts.' Harry tensed back up, but if Glynnie knew anything about Harry Potter or that Harry himself was the infamous boy in question, she didn't show a whit of it. She was bringing a griddle out of the cupboard and lighting the oven with a match and the burners with the knobs, and the ease of her very normal movement around the kitchen was proof enough for Harry that she really was a Muggle. She reminded him a bit of Cook back at Crowhill, though quite a lot kinder.

'Silly-sounding name, isn't it? I've always thought it would be a treat to see, but who has time? Well, maybe someday. Let's start with the bacon, love, bring me that packet of rashers. Now, have you ever had a properly Welsh breakfast? It won't be entirely what you're used to, you know.'

Harry was spared having to talk much about himself over the next hour. Glynnie kept up a largely one-sided conversation, interspersing stories of growing up in Beddgelert with brisk instructions and cheery praise whenever he did something right, and before he knew it Harry found himself patting oats and gooey green laverbread into cakes to fry in an oiled pan, and learning how to fry an egg without crisping the edges, and how to get a good brown on the cockles on the griddle. His near-year of Potions stood him in good stead, having learnt to monitor a flame by the colour and intensity, not to mention precision in handling knives and stirrers, and he found himself rather proud of the meal they made together.

Mr Lupin had taken himself to bed as soon as they'd returned to Beddgelert. They'd taken a taxi from London- the Floo was difficult if you couldn't step lively, said Mr Lupin, he only maintained the network license for his son to visit- and, despite sleeping the majority of the evening ride, Harry had had no difficulty sleeping in. Mr Lupin had merely pointed Harry toward the room he'd had before. Harry had crawled into bed without changing his clothes, mumbling a sleepy thanks.

But Harry was young, and his long rest had more than restored him. Mr Lupin was another matter entirely, and he was still abed and asleep when Glynnie knocked briskly at his door and let herself in. Harry, following her with a heavy tray of food, found reason to linger in the corridor til he heard Mr Lupin answer her determined enquiries. Welsh might as well have been gibberish to Harry, but he recognised grumpy tones and accordingly kept himself out of sight til Glynnie called for him. He kept his eyes on his toes as he crossed the rug, and slid the tray onto the side table at her instruction.

'I know it's not a pretty face, but it's the one I've got,' said Mr Lupin. 'Eyes up, child.'

'Sorry, sir.'

'Don't let him boss you this way and that,' Glynnie advised, pouring out potions from bottles she fetched from the en suite. 'Thinks he's still an MP, don't he.'

'I wasn't an MP, you silly bint,' Mr Lupin grumbled. He thrust out his stubbly chin at Harry. 'Sat the Wizengamot for eighteen years,' he said. 'My father held it for sixty-four. You think I'm a pain, that man was a bloody tyrant. Right to the end he thought he could order the pox itself to leave him be. Sit here, boy, eat something. Glynnie will think you don't like her cooking.'

'His cooking,' Glynnie pointed out, serving him a loaded plate with a wink. 'And a fine job he did. Refused to poison your portion, old man.'

Harry had munched his way through two eggs, the salty laverbread cake and saltier cockles, four sausages and thick rashers of bacon, and was scooping his mushrooms onto a slice of fried bread when the owl tapped at the window. He didn't wait for Mr Lupin's order to go, he abandoned his plate immediately onto the bed and hurried to get the window open. A brown barn owl with a gold Ministry badge squawked imperiously and wouldn't let Harry at the bundle tied to its jesses til Mr Lupin directed him to a bowl of bronze knuts and silver sickles on the dresser. He paid the owl by slipping a few coins into the little pouch it wore, and then the owl allowed Harry to untie the package. It waddled onto the window ledge and launched as Harry carried the bundle back to Mr Lupin.

' _The Daily Prophet,'_ Mr Lupin said, surprised, unrolling the paper. 'I don't subscribe, why on earth-'

'Sir!' Harry remembered just in time not to grab, but he jabbed at the paper in his excitement. 'The headline!'

Mr Lupin exhaled a startled huff. 'Well I'll be damned.'

'Who's Sirius Black?' asked Glynnie.

Harry clambered over a pair of orange alligator boots to join Mr Lupin at the head of the bed. Mr Lupin held the paper so Harry could read along with him, but Harry got no further than the picture of a dignified Chief Auror Scrimgeour shaking Sirius's hand with Minister Fudge giving off a queasy smile on the other side. His reading was interrupted by a hollered greeting from downstairs.

'Sirius!' Harry tripped on the same shoes as he threw himself toward the door. He took the stairs two at a time and that only because, barefoot, he nearly slipped, and caught himself on the railing only with quick reflexes. Still, he hurtled round the corner and into the Floo room at such a pace that he couldn't stop himself before he hit Sirius. Sirius laughed brightly and pulled him off his feet altogether, swinging him around in an unsteady pirouette that ended with both of them breathless and grinning.

'You're free?' Harry demanded.

'Free,' Sirius repeated with relish. 'It's not all signed and sealed yet, there's to be a trial, but I'm to be free on my own remand til then!'

'Under a Trace from the Ministry,' said someone behind Sirius, followed by a fondly cross, 'Look at you, you've tracked ash everywhere, you great oaf.'

'Professor Lupin! You're free too?'

'There's no good in holding me,' Lupin said drily, taking Sirius's cloak too. 'I'm not nearly important enough for a headline. Sirius is all the press Scrimgeour wants- if he can't be the hero who arrested the dastardly Death Eater Sirius Black, he can be the hero who brings justice to the wronged innocent Sirius, heir of the Ancient and Noble House Black.'

'No politics, Moony, not til we've celebrated!' Sirius sniffed broadly. 'Brekkie?' he asked hopefully.

'Not til you've gone and properly greeted my father. And,' Professor Lupin warned, 'apologised for breaking in.'

Sirius grimaced broadly. 'He didn't even know I did it, did he?'

'You want to set a good example for your godson, don't you?'

Sirius turned wide eyes on Harry. They were bright and laughing once again, not dim with Veritaserum and guilt, and something in Harry unwound, seeing that.

'Guess I'd better,' Sirius said, scrubbing a sheepish hand through his short hair. 'I'll, er, yeah. Remus, you coming?'

'In a mo.' Lupin cocked his head for Harry to follow, and they went, alone, into the sitting room. Lupin removed a thick packet of paper from his blazer, and set it on the chintz cushion between them. 'These are papers for adoption,' he told Harry softly. 'I had planned that once my father had the entail and had taken the Potter name, it would be possible to move to this next step. I never dreamt it might be possible for you to have more than that. But... Sirius is your godfather. And I think it's clear at this point he'll be exonerated at trial. I thought you should know you had the option.'

His mind whited out. Just pure numb. 'Sirius could a-adopt me?' he stuttered.

Lupin's lashes swept low to hide his pale eyes. 'To be quite candid, I think, for your protection, a decision should be made as quickly as possible. The entail isn't nothing, but your relatives have a better claim by blood. I can't tell you what's going to happen with the Dursleys or Lucius Malfoy or Albus Dumbledore, but my gut tells me it will happen fast, that's it's already happening- that, somewhere, someone is drawing up very similar papers to ensure you go where they want you. I think you should have your say in it.'

Harry stared at the papers. They almost made his hands itch, so he rubbed them flat on his pyjamas. 'If... this were the best solution, though, you'd've said. Sirius adopting me, I mean.'

'There's no solution that's perfect. There will be problems, even with Sirius.' Lupin hovered just short of touching Harry's knee. 'Do I think he would love you, protect you, and give you everything a boy your age should desire? Of course I do.'

'But?'

'Leave the "but" to me. For now, just think it over. You've only had the worst of circumstances to get to know him at all. Now you've got the Easter holiday in close quarters, with no relief but Glynnie and dear old Da.' The little parenthetical line at the left of Lupin's mouth crinkled. 'So don't waste any more time with me. There's a couple of old brooms in the shed. Sirius nearly shouted it out first thing at you, but for me threatening to hang him by his thumbs.'

'We can fly here?'

'Absolutely.'

Harry hesitated on his feet. 'Professor...'

Lupin tucked the papers back into his coat. 'Yes, Harry?'

'You'd adopt me, wouldn't you? If you could.'

Lupin inhaled. His eyes closed. 'I hope you know I would.'

'I do,' he said. 'But it's nice to hear.' He took ginger hold of the shoulder of Lupin's coat, and carefully applied his mouth to Lupin's temple. It was only a quick brush, the bravest he could be. And he ran before Lupin could say anything, anyway.


	29. An Interlude in Two Parts

_In Which The Shortest Distance Between Two People Is A Story._

 _Young James Potter led an enchanted career at Hogwarts, but all was not so simple for those in his immediate circle. The Sorting of First Year students in 1971 was lengthier than in current times, in those few years before the Pox decimated entire generations. There were, however, few surprises. House affiliation tends to pass along in Pureblood families, with only new alliances between branches yielding any new traits in the children of such marriages- and, of course, the Muggleborns, whose affiliation is unknown. Lily Evans, for instance, could not have suspected she would Sort to Gryffindor, though contemporaries recall her as forthright, honest, and kind, traits which could have led her to Hufflepuff as soon as Gryffindor, and as the top student of her year she could well have been a Ravenclaw. James would never have been anything but a Gryffindor, and indeed quickly became the tastemaker of that House, emerging as a leader and adventurer nonpareil. Though he frequently lost points for Gryffindor in various acts of mischief, he made them up in his classes, natural talent placing him at the forefront of his peers- not unlike his father Fleamont Potter._

 _No, the true shocker of 1971's Sorting was Sirius Orion Black. The heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Black could have expected nothing other than to continue his family's ancient allegiance to the line of Salazaar Slytherin, to which Blacks had been admitted time immemorial. (See Chapter 19 for a full genealogy.) According to observers, Sirius Black- then a small boy, fey of feature, thin with neglect- approached the Sorting with grim determination._

 _'Marched right up to the Hat, as I recall it,' said Lympeta Bagshot, niece of the great historian Bathilda Bagshot, and a third year in 1971. 'Of course everyone knows the Blacks- half the Wizarding World's related to the Blacks. Should've been straight into Slytherin, no interruptions. But he's one of the first of the kiddies to go up, isn't he, and he marches right up there and sits on the stool, and then it's quiet for the longest time. And he's scowling so deep I thought he'd set the Hat on fire, I did, but then finally it calls out "Gryffindor". You should've seen the Slytherin table- half of 'em near fainted at the news. Lucius Malfoy thought it was a joke. Started writing an owl home straight away- biggest news of the decade.'_

 _'I admit most of us were awful to him at first,' regrets Sebastian Belby. 'Thought he was a spy, or a- well, you can guess what sort of language the Purebloods were using. Total outcast.'_

 _'Troublemaker,' recalled Hortense Addams. 'First week alone he started a fist-fight in the Great Hall with a Slytherin.'_

 _'Started?' Rhys Davies disputes that description. 'More like ambushed, and by half the bloody House. Poor kid spent the night in the hospital wing- broke his nose and his arm, cursed him half senseless. And they didn't let up after that, not after old Slughorn took ten points off anyone who participated. They just got better at hiding it. He'd come to class limping, or bleeding, or they'd lock him in some broom cupboard or empty classroom. Pitched him into the Lake, once. That first term must've been awful for him.'_

 _But Black soon found himself a defender. Second-year Remus Lupin was in something of a low himself, having returned from Christmas break anxious and depressed after the death of Abluth Masterson. One can speculate that Lupin, a sickly child, may have passed a few hours in Black's company in the Hogwarts infirmary, perhaps striking up a conversation, sharing dark secrets, exchanging woes. Whatever the case, Lupin took an interest in the younger boy. Soon they were seen together between classes, then sitting together in the Library, even eating meals together in the Great Hall. It seems to have been Lupin's influence which brought James Potter to the party._

 _'Well, as I remember it, James had got himself behind in History of Magic, and Lupin was the assigned tutor,' Squala Rioux, prefect for Ravenclaw, mused. 'Lupin was tutoring half the school, actually- deathly dull subject. Anyway, Potter would've got to know him there. Lupin was a gentle sort, quiet, didn't have a lot of friends even in his own House. On the face of it you wouldn't expect them to get on, but maybe that was part of the intrigue. James was surrounded by people who thought the world of him just because of his name. Lupin didn't buy into any of that, and he made it known. You had to earn his respect. I suspect James found that a challenge, and there wasn't a challenge he didn't want to best.'_

 _As for Black? 'Well, he had no-one on his side but that Hufflepuff bloke,' shrugs Belby. 'Getting Potter to even talk to him was a coup. But it wasn't long before they were everywhere together. By second year they were sharing a dorm. Third year Black took his holidays with the Potters. Then one year he didn't go home at all- the Potters adopted him in all but name. I heard he was disinherited, but his brother still talked to him, so maybe not.'_

 _In truth, Sirius was disinherited, though not irrevocably. However, he did decline to return to his parents, who declined to prosecute the Potters for his return. There was no formal adoption, but it was widely believed that Black's allegiance to the Potters represented the possibility of a new branch of the Ancient House, and he regained in reputation and marketability what his Gryffindor rebellion had long appeared to endanger. Proposals of marriage into Pureblood families began to trickle in, then flood- and, it was rumoured, there was something of a bidding war between families Light and Dark as to who would get him at what price. But Black was never publicly attached to any young lady of marriagable age, and maintained his happy bachelorhood into his early twenties._

 _'Of course people gossiped about it,' Lympeta said. 'Always together, weren't they? Even after James married that Muggleborn girl. They said Sirius was in love with James. I don't know it myself for fact, but I own it looked odd.'_

 _'Potter, queer? Would've been a scandal, a disaster,' gasped a clearly delighted Timothy Cattermole. 'Him the only heir and all. Everyone knew a couple of obvious pillowbiters in school, and one day they turn up married with children. If they had a piece on the side, it was for Vice Corps in Magical Law Enforcement to worry about, wasn't it? Half those laws are still on the books, even if they don't put men on trial for it much anymore. But fines? The Ministry gets half its operating budget on fining the Purebloods for various perversions.'_

 _But in fact Black did strike out on his own, not quite six months before the wedding of James and Lily. He quietly paid for a flat in the South Downs, a charming Victorian rowhouse at a short walk from the beachead. Though no records support this, his neighbours recalled that Black had a flatmate- one who paid no rent, perhaps on account of the difficulty he faced in maintaining work. Remus Lupin must have loathed being a charity case for his wealthy friends, but nevertheless he took advantage of their generosity. He was sacked from a low-level Ministry job in '79, provided supply teaching at a Wizarding primary in Kent, served as morning shift manager at Flourish and Blott's for some months, but employment never seemed to last in those days. Lupin was known to be ailing, and my investigations have determined he spent nearly two months in hospice care at St Mungos in 1980, evidently raising the concern amongst his friends that he might, in fact, never recover. Black was at his side to the detriment of his own employment as an Auror Corps trainee, twice reprimanded for missing muster. Then, quite of a sudden, Lupin's employment problems seemed to vanish- as did he. There is, in fact, no record at all of Lupin's whereabouts between February of 1980 and November of 1981, when he was hauled before the Wizengamot to testify his own innocence in the murder of the Potters._

 _Where was Lupin? What was he at in this mysterious absence from the increasingly dangerous lives of his closest friends? And, if there are indeed innocent answers to those questions, then why was Lupin's testimony before the Wizengamot sealed under the highest level of secrecy by order of the Chief Warlock? What did Lupin know about Black, and why was he not allowed to share it with the Wizarding public?_

 _~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from_ Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy

* * *

In all the excitement, Harry had rather forgot he was due a visit from his Head of House.

Minerva McGonagall came knocking at the door Harry's third day at Beddgelert. Harry himself was unaware of this, as he and Sirius had gone into town for ice creams at Glaslyn Ices and a leisurely hike through the hills on their way back. Sirius spent much of the hike in dog form, romping with abandon, darting off after birds and rabbits and tackling Harry from behind til Harry was quite covered in dirt and determined to get the best of his godfather. He had his chance as they crossed the river, or at least thought he had- they both emerged from his attempt soaked to the bone in freezing water, grinning sheepishly at each other. They squelched their way home shivering merrily, and arrived home, conquering heroes, to be immediately banished to the kitchen by Professor Lupin, where they wouldn't drip on the carpet.

'I never in all my life will understand where you find all this mud,' Lupin complained to Sirius, who grinned from beneath the shaggy straggles of his hair and accepted his scolding with an odd contentment. Then again, that might be because Lupin was busy with Harry, who was forcibly stripped down to his underthings and attacked with a fluffy towel. Lupin scrubbed Harry dry with brisk efficiency. 'Are you conjuring it?' Lupin went on with faux-irritation, swadling Harry in the towel so tight his bones couldn't chatter anymore and then spooning a mouthful of Pepper-Up potion into him without so much as a by-your-leave. Harry squawked as heat flashed up his limbs and steamed out his ears. And squawked again when he looked over Lupin's shoulder and found Professor McGonagall standing there with Harry and Sirius near starkers in a puddle and-

Oh, God in Heaven. Harry could just absolutely die. _Tonks._ His face reddened all over again, and he waddled for the cover of the stove as fast as he could with Lupin trying to dry his hair. 'I'm not dressed!' he hissed, fatally humiliated, but Tonks only laughed brightly.

'Speed things along a bit?' she suggested, and tossed something. Lupin caught it out of the air- his wand. 'Freshly released from custody. They wanted to impound it, you know. Evidence. I convinced them a _Priori Incantatem_ was sufficient for the case.'

'I thought it was a goner,' Lupin said, giving his wand a familiar caress before flicking it at Harry. Harry's hair wrung itself dry in a blast of hot air. 'Thank you, Nymphadora.'

'Yeah, _Nymphadoooora,'_ Sirius echoed with sickeningly sweet tones. He, too, seemed a bit shy under the scrutiny of a woman old enough to be his grandmother and another younger than him by ten years, hugging his towel close about his thin torso, weedy legs poking out very pale and knobby-kneed. But his grin was cheeky as ever, with a hint of rosy blush in his face. 'Any chance of getting my wand back?' he asked hopefully, as Lupin dried him with the same charm and summoned clothes from the laundry. Sirius shrugged into one of Lupin's jumpers quickly, knotting his towel at the waist.

Tonks looked genuinely regretful. 'It was destroyed,' she told him, biting at her lip. 'On the other hand, once you're cleared, you'll be allowed a new one.'

Sirius scrubbed a hand through his ragged short hair. 'Suppose it's not all bad. It was a hand-me-down from Uncle Musca. Never did like me all that much- the wand or my uncle.'

Lupin had fetched Harry clothes as well, and Harry took advantage of the momentary diversion of attention to dress hastily. He couldn't prevent another flush as Tonks winked at him, emerging, but his voice was reasonably steady when he greeted the women properly. 'Hullo, Professor. Tonks. Er... what are you doing here?'

'Primarily, ascertaining that I've been near a week worried for nothing,' McGonagall said drily. 'You might imagine my surprise, Mr Potter, to discover you were not, in fact, with the Dursleys.'

'Oh.' Harry had been working very hard to think absolutely nothing of that entire debacle, aided and abetted by Sirius, Professor Lupin, and Mr Lupin as well, who had all joined Harry in a bit of pretending they were at a holiday reunion, untroubled by the circumstances which had merited it. 'I'm really sorry. I didn't think.'

'The fault isn't yours, Harry,' Professor Lupin forgave him. 'It's entirely mine.'

'And you've gone and apologised so piteously I have no choice but to accept.' McGonagall eyed Lupin sternly, but softened to smile, just a bit, at Harry. 'I would like to speak to you privately, if you're quite ready, Potter.'

It was to be a short visit, and much more congenial than it might have been at the Dursleys. Harry showed the professor his room- Lupin had found him a trunk of old things to decorate it for his own, and Harry had just yesterday added a poster of the Holyhead Harpies, purchased in town at an off-license that served both magical and Muggle customers. Glynnie had given Harry books that had once belonged to her own son, and so he had a shelf of Hardy Boys mysteries, a pile of comic books- Harry had grinned at those, recalling the remarkably persistent rumour that Harry Potter had been secretly trained up by Batman to fight crime abroad- and a dog-eared copy of Grimm's fairy tales, amongst others, but what lay open on Harry's bed was Rita Skeeter's unpublished manuscript. He gathered the parchment sheets into a rough pile and hid them away in his desk. He saw McGonagall note it, but she didn't ask, and he didn't tell.

Instead she sat in his chair, sweeping the long hem of her robe beneath her elegantly, and she folded her hands on her lap and looked him eye-to-eye. She said, 'I hope you're happy, Harry.'

He sank onto the edge of his bed, rubbing his palm over the old brass knob on the footboard. 'It's all right, isn't it? For me to be here?'

'It is, if it's what you want.' She cocked her head slightly, sunlight from the window catching at her glasses and reflecting, not letting him see her eyes. 'It is what you want, yes?'

He swallowed hard, and put up his chin. 'Yes,' he said. 'I just... I don't know what happens next. Does everyone have to know?'

'No,' McGonagall conceded reasonably, but she moved her head again, away from him, with a sigh. 'In fact I think both privacy and security are served with a relatively high level of secrecy, something you clearly have no difficulty maintaining. But there is someone who will need to know.'

'Dumbledore,' Harry said softly.

'There's both a long and a short explanation for it, and you may find any or all of his reasons unfair, untrue, or inapplicable to the reality you have lived since your parents were killed.' McGonagall hesitated. 'Some of his reasons I will tell you plainly I agree with, and some I never did, but I didn't argue hard enough against him, to your detriment. For that, Potter, you have my sincerest apology.'

'I don't know what you could've done, Professor.'

She let that pass with only a nod of acknowledgement. 'But in truth, Harry, I think the Headmaster cares a great deal for you. He waited a long time for you, you know. I won't ask it of you, but I will hope you consider that before you meet with him again. He's a good man, and if he takes certain choices on himself he ought not to, well... consider who else might make them if he did not.'

Harry picked at the seam of his trousers. 'Yes, Professor.'

'Well.' She smiled at him, rather wearily, he thought. 'The rest of term will be something of an anti-climax, after what you've been through, but I can't exempt you from exams. My hope is you will find a return to normality a boon to your marks. You were on your way to an Exceeds Expectations in Potions, you know.'

'Snape told you that?'

'Professor Snape,' she said, straining the title just slightly, 'and he did, with a certain chagrin. I don't know why he's surprised- your mother was a dab hand at Potions, and James wasn't all bad, either.' Her smile became a smirk. 'On the other hand, Mr Potter, your work in Transfiguration could stand a bit of polish. The exam will test your ability to cast the spell, not just your ability to achieve your desired end. Your technique is behind where it should be.'

It was Harry who hesitated now. 'Professor...'

'Yes?'

It was on the tip of his tongue, to tell her about the way he'd killed Quirrell. That hadn't been a proper spell at all- that hadn't been his desired end, either. He'd called fire, and he'd got it, but a fire so strong it had destroyed a man in moments. And he'd cast the not-spell with the hand that had touched the unicorn's blood.

But it was too much just now. He didn't want to think about it yet. He forced a smile. 'I'll do my best,' he said.

'I expect so,' she said, but she was smiling still, and he knew it was all right.

Tonks stayed, even after McGonagall left, and an open bottle of wine and a big dish of treacle with custard had several spoons in it when Harry rejoined them in the kitchen. Harry was presented a spoon of his own, and it was pleasant and relaxing to sit with Tonks on one side and Sirius on the other, grinning as they volleyed teasing insults at each other in an escalating contest of silliness that had Lupin rolling his eyes and shaking his head at them.

'They're cousins,' Lupin told him, topping off the wine glasses to empty the bottle and giving Harry a cola from the cold cupboard. 'Regulus always had a sharp tongue, too. It must run in the blood.'

'Good reason to be glad I'm only halfsies,' Tonks stage-whispered to Harry with an exaggerated shudder. 'Imagine being a full Black! Yikers.'

'I thought you said Draco's a cousin too?' Harry asked.

'His mum and my mum are sisters. Andromeda and Narcissa Black.'

'My cousins,' Sirius said. 'Although Dromeda's the only one worth speaking to in the lot. Ancient and Noble bollocks,' he told Harry, who stifled a giggle with a guilty glance at Lupin. 'All that Pureblood nonsense'll rot your teeth. Inbred nutters, all of 'em. At least you've got Muggle blood to dilute the poison, Tonks.' He dragged his spoon through the dregs of custard and licked it clean with relish. 'If there's one good thing out of all of this, it's getting to watch the line die with me. I'm taking the Blacks to their grave and doing it with pride.'

'You aren't going to have any kids?' Harry wondered.

'Never much wanted 'em. I want you,' Sirius said hastily, though Harry forgave him with a shrug. 'No, I do, Harry. But it's different than what I always thought I'd- you know, I thought I'd get married off to some Pureblood twit with no thought in her empty little head but popping out a new generation so the money has somewhere to go. Best thing I ever did was get myself disinherited, but even that's been undone. Maybe I'll take the Potter name, too, eh? That'd send my bitch mother rolling in her grave.'

'Harry,' Lupin interrupted gently, 'I've remembered I've got trunks upstairs of old things from my school days. I thought you might like to go through them- I'm sure I've some things from your parents, old notebooks, some letters, that sort of thing.'

Harry recognised a subject change when he was Bludgered with one. But it was getting dark outside with the look of oncoming rain, which meant no further adventuring today, and so he nodded agreeably. That, and Lupin immediately invited Tonks to join them, with supper at the other end of it, and anything that would keep her around a while longer was good with Harry.

So they trooped upstairs- and upstairs and upstairs to an attic Harry was sure the small cottage shouldn't physically have, but that was magic for you- and into a sloping room littered with the detritus of generations. Harry stopped to peer at a very old rocking horse, cracked wood and peeling paint not concealing the love it had had over many years; there was an old child's crib on rockers, low to the floor and with a mobile of glass figurines perched over it. Lupin gave it a spin with a fingertip as he passed, and said wryly to Harry, 'Can you believe I was ever small enough to fit in that?'

'No,' Harry said, and the adults laughed.

'This was your mum's?' Tonks had found a dress hanging from an open wardrobe and pulled back the dusty sheeting. It was a wedding dress- or, well, a wizarding interpretation of that, anyway. White witch's robes, beaded at the bust and puffy sleeves, with velvet flowers sewn on everywhere and a train of bright satin that pooled out in a wide circle when Tonks fanned it out across the floorboards. Harry came to her side to look, trying to picture the woman from Lupin's painting in it. She had been very small- considerably shorter than Tonks, almost as short as Harry- and he could have spanned the tiny waist with his two hands. 'She must have been beautiful in this,' Tonks said, throwing a smile over her shoulder.

'My father certainly thought so.' Lupin took another bundle down from the peg, and revealed his father's wedding robes. Sirius burst out laughing on seeing them, and Tonks, groaning, pretended to be blinded. They were an eye-searing shade of green in crushed velvet, accented in orange houndstooth. 'I think my Da and Dumbledore have the same tailor,' Lupin said, and Sirius laughed all over again.

Their search was lazy and willingly distracted by Lupin family history. 'Why do you have so many books?' Sirius complained more than once, as they hefted crate after crate of hard-bound tomes from the shelves.

'Just because you never learnt to read,' Professor Lupin retorted, unruffled, as he discarded yet another trunk. Harry glanced up from his cataloguing of the last seven boxes. The newest batch looked like textbooks. 'Ah,' Lupin said then, a tone of triumph, and strained on the tips of his toes to get at a box crammed back high beneath the eaves. 'Here we are.'

It hit the floor with a thump and a whuff of dust. Lupin cleared the top with his sleeve, peeling back a strip of Muggle tape that had long lost its sticky. Harry came to crouch by the adults as they bent over it. Tonks had a chuckle right off, liberating the item on top- a Hufflepuff banner, Class of '77. 'You kept this?' she wondered, unfurling the nubby felt. The golden yellow hue had faded, but the lettering was still crisp.

'Kept more than that.' Lupin handed Harry the next item, a Hogwarts diploma, simply framed in plain pine. A graduation notice. Marks for something called NEWTs- Harry was not at all surprised that Lupin had been an exemplary student, a column of proud 'O's marching down the parchment. Several editions of what appeared to be a student newsletter, _The Warty Hog_ , advertising various clubs and goings-ons. Lupin tapped an article about a girl named Lily Evans, and Harry gasped to realise it was his mother. She had won a prestigious scholarship for a school in Sweden to study Charms for a Mastery.

'My parents lived in Sweden?'

'Just Lily,' Lupin said, standing to retrieve another box from the closet. 'Eighteen months, wasn't it, Sirius? She came back quite the sophisticate, travelled and experienced and Continental. And she had a French boyfriend, hadn't she, what was his name...?'

'Etienne,' Sirius guessed. 'Arnaud? Yves? Something with a vowel.'

'It sent James into a tailspin. It was all well and good for _him_ to date other people, you see, but Lily? He'd always rather thought of her as his.'

'Oh I like that,' Tonks said tartly. 'I hope she corrected his misconception.'

'At once, and loudly,' Lupin agreed. 'But she must have enjoyed his attempts to win her back. The boyfriend went home to France in record time, and a year later James and Lily were married.'

'Have you still got those exceedoes?' Sirius asked, jumping to his feet to hunt through the wardrobes. 'It was half Muggle, half Wizarding,' he told Harry. 'Then men all wore Muggle and the women had proper robes and things. Huge uproar, made all the fashion pages, bloody headline in _The Prophet_.'

'Tuxedo, and I think I have got it, actually, but not in there, that's all my parents'. Maybe...' Lupin sorted through an upright trunk beneath the window. 'Oh, Pads, look.'

'What?'

'Do you remember this?' Lupin turned to display it across his chest, spreading one arm wide to show it to best advantage.

'Cool,' Harry said reverently.

'Ohh, wowzer,' Tonks agreed. 'That's yours, Sirius? What a dish.'

Sirius blushed a bit at that, but put on a bit of a strut crossing the attic to Lupin. 'This old rag? Clean forgot about it.' He dragged a fingertip over the fringe that strung the length of the arm. It was a motorcycle jacket, leather and suede, tasselled and beaded with big brass studs, the thick belt buckled with an enormous union jack. 'I did look pretty good flying in that,' he admitted.

'Flying?' Harry asked. 'Like Quidditch?'

'Even better, little man. I had a flying motorbike. Worked on the enchantments for that thing for ages, didn't we, Moony? You remember my first flight?'

'I remember fetching you out of the tree,' Lupin said pointedly. Tonks sniggered.

'Well, I got better, didn't I,' Sirius shrugged. 'You want to talk about a cool ride, kid, that bike was the coolest thing in chrome.'

'Wait, a flying motorbike?' Harry hopped to his feet in his excitement. 'But I remember that! Sort of, at least. Hagrid said he took me on a flying motorbike when I was a baby!'

Sirius snapped his fingers. 'Hagrid has my bike! Well, not for long. He'll have kept it up, I bet. Wouldn't let a beauty like that go to rust.'

'No, but he has probably fit it out for a sidecar sized for dragon eggs,' Lupin muttered.

'Dragon eggs?'

Harry giggled. 'Norbert! It's a long story. Hang on- if Hagrid has a flying motorbike, why'd we need Charlie Weasley to come get Norbert on brooms?'

'Not many petrol stations en route to Romania that can service magical motorbikes,' Lupin explained. 'Not to mention what Hagrid might have tried to pick up for the return trip. Here.' He unzipped the jacket and gave it a good shake. 'Put it on, then.'

'Me?' Harry looked to Sirius for permission, and Sirius nodded, grinning. Harry slid his arms into it, and Lupin settled it onto his shoulders. Tonks whistled appreciatively, and Harry felt his face flaming. It was far too big on him, of course, the sleeves hanging well past the tips of his fingers and the fringe dragging on the floor unless he held his arms out rigidly, and it creaked stiffly and hung heavy on him, but it was definitely the coolest thing he'd ever worn. Tonks took a swipe at his hair, mussing it more than usual.

'Wicked,' she pronounced with a wink. 'You're gonna be a real ladykiller in a coupla years, mate.'

As if he needed the reminder. That deflated him a bit; Tonks had, after all, just seen him near naked in the kitchen, and wearing a bigger man's clothes probably didn't do much to make him seem grown up and sophisticated. A tad disgruntled, Harry shed the jacket, and held it out to Sirius instead. 'You now. Let's see it proper.'

Sirius donned it with a practised shrug that pinwheeled his arms smoothly, popping up the collar and brushing down the lapels in one continuous flow. He added a sauve flip to his hair, with a rakish grin as it flopped smoothly over his brow again. Lupin chuckled at this posing, and helped him zip it up tight, buckling the belt for him and tugging the hem into place at his hips. 'You old dandy,' Lupin said, and leant in to kiss him.

It sucked all the air out of the room. The moment Lupin realised what he'd done, unthinking, his face paled rapidly. Sirius, too, went still, his eyes falling to his bare feet. Tonks looked rather shocked, then rather thoughtful. No-one said anything- Harry wished with all his might someone would just say something, because the silence was deafening.

'I- left the kettle on,' Lupin croaked, and he left without looking at anyone.

Sirius bit his bottom lip so hard it emerged white. Brash and a little too loud, he said to Harry, 'Reckon that's a surprise.'

'Er,' Harry said, but really he was thinking that it wasn't, in fact.

Sirius thrust out his chin like a boy bracing himself to throw a temper tantrum if he didn't get his way, but his eyes were begging. 'Can you be okay with it?'

Harry considered his answer carefully. 'I want you both to be happy,' he said at last, and thought he'd got it right, because the vulnerable shadow left Sirius's face in a blink, and his shoulders slumped in relief.

'Thanks,' Sirius mumbled, and shed his jacket into a heap atop one of the book crates. 'Don't know if it will or won't, you know, if he'll- he won't, I mean, that was an accident, I'm sure, just... you know, eh?'

Harry didn't, particularly, but maybe it wasn't just wizards who were afraid to name things. Maybe it was just how people were, and that he could understand very well. 'Yeah,' he said.

Tonks blew out a big sigh. 'Well,' she said, 'if your mum wasn't rolling in her grave before, she sure is now.'

Sirius guffawed, and everything was all right again, at least for the moment. Still, everyone seemed in silent accord that the best thing to do was give Lupin, at least, a little space, so they all stayed in the attic for the next couple of hours, digging out the rest of the boxes and finding some of the momentos they'd originally gone looking for. Harry read several postcards his mum had sent Lupin during her mastery abroad, all of them chatty and familiar and full of tales of the places she'd been and interesting things she'd read. There was less of that sort of thing from his father, but Sirius said James had been pants at letter-writing and anyway they'd all been together all the time, what was the use of writing anything down? So from James it was all tickets to Quidditch games, magazines of the sort Harry hadn't been allowed to see at Crowhill, featuring 'wicked witches' and something else Harry didn't quite get to read before Tonks, muttering, snatched them away, and a large amount of tricks of the sort the Weasley twins trucked in, which sent Sirius into a raft of tales about pranks pulled on Slytherins. That topic filled an epic hour at least.

But at last there was nothing for it but to go downstairs. It was nearing the dinner hour, and Harry at least was starving, but Sirius made it no farther than the upper storey bedrooms before he found an excuse to go elsewhere- 'Put some pants on, you wanker, wanderin' about in a towel,' Tonks hollered after him, but once they were at the ground level she said she wanted to see the sunset, and went the long way through the front door which wouldn't put her facing west even, so it was clearly just a gambit to be shot of an uncomfortable conversation. Harry allowed himself to stand dithering in the corridor a moment, but only a moment. There was no good in shirking this.

Professor Lupin was sat at the small table in the kitchen, staring into his interlaced fingers. He started when Harry bumped into a chair. 'Oh,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I meant to do- how do you feel about chicken tonight?'

'I like chicken.' Harry took a glance at the kettle. If it had ever been on, it had surely not been for a long time. It was quite cool when he touched a finger to it. And nearly empty. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' he asked, carrying it to the sink to fill it.

'Oh. Yes, thank you. That's kind.'

Harry carried the kettle back to the stove and lit a burner for it. 'Umm... milk and sugar?'

'Just milk, please.' Lupin was working himself up to something, and it came out through clenched teeth in a taut whisper. 'I'm sorry you had to see that.'

'I... why are you sorry?'

'It's not my- intent- to- do anything- that would make you uncomfortable or-' Words Lupin had clearly spent the past hours chewing over to death, emerging as if he had to force his tongue to shape them. 'I don't want anything to change your opinion of Sirius.'

'Oh, no. It didn't, I mean. I mean- I guess I hadn't thought of that, exactly.'

Lupin formed a curse with his lips, looking away with a grimace. 'Well... you don't have to. Think of it. It was my fault. Just- mine.'

'I don't...'

Lupin's hands clenched hard on the tabletop. 'Whatever you've heard is- people say awful things, I'm more than aware of that, Muggle attitudes aren't exactly progressive, wizards are even more hidebound, I don't- Sirius is-'

'I don't mind, Professor.'

'It just shouldn't affect your judgement of Sirius's fitness as a guardian. If he were to adopt you, I'm certain he-'

'Millicent Bulstrode's going to ask me on a date.'

'-won't be- what?'

'A girl. If I go out with a girl, you won't be upset?'

Lupin blinked. 'Of course not, Harry.'

'Exactly,' Harry said. 'There's nothing to be upset about.'

He saw the moment Lupin understood his meaning. Lupin inhaled, just a bit, and shut his mouth. He nodded, and again, the way he did sometimes, and clamped his hands together. 'Thank you,' he mouthed, without quite any voice behind it, and nodded again.

The kettle began to whistle. Harry hooked it off the burner, and made up a cup rather than a whole pot. A pinch of leaves and a splash of milk, boiling water poured over it. He set the cup at Lupin's elbow.

'Wait,' Lupin said suddenly. 'Who's Millicent Bulstrode? How old is she? Since when are you _dating_? I thought I had a few years yet before I had to worry about that.'

Harry scratched sheepishly at his hair. 'Er, well, I could use a bit of advice about that, actually.'

* * *

 _With the Potters dead, Pettigrew murdered in the midst of some dozen Muggles, Black imprisoned, and Lupin suddenly thrust into the public eye as the whole of the Wizarding World demanded answers, the disappearance of infant Harry Potter was not immediately noticed._

 _It was, in fact, this reporter who first raised the question of Harry Potter's safety in the wake of You-Know-Who's defeat. Where had the blessed child been taken- and, indeed, who had taken him? The Wizengamot demanded an investigation, voting nearly unanimously to instigate a formal enquiry under the auspices of the Auror Corps, but the trials for alleged Death Eaters began less than a month after that fateful Halloween night, and other news dominated the broadsheets for a time. Some assumed Harry Potter had only been removed to some secret hide-away to ensure his immediate safety, and he would emerge to be greeted as a hero within a few weeks, a few months, a few years. The more conspiracy-minded believed he had not, in fact, survived at all- that the Boy Who Lived had succumbed to the Killing Curse alongside his parents. His whereabouts took on the quality of a myth, or something even less substantial than a myth- stories about sightings in the mountains of Tibet were as fanciful as pictures of a dark-haired boy seen walking the streets of Salem, North America, or Hong Kong, or Mumbai. Harry Potter might well have gone down as other such fancies as Muggles walking on the Moon, as improbable and unprovable as the imagination could conjure._

 _But for those who continued to believe Harry Potter was alive, some few remained convinced he could not be far from British shores. Where better, after all, to hide this most precious boy than where he could be watched over? Where better to hide him than in a country well and truly pacified in the wake of evil's final destruction? The abrupt departure of Lupin for the Continent raised eyebrows amongst those who thought he might take guardianship of the child, but on taking a post at Beauxbatons, the premier French magical academy, Lupin would have been hard-pressed to hide the existence of a child in the small suite he was afforded as part of his room and board at the school. Lupin did venture away from the school periodically, but a preliminary report by an Auror who allowed me to review case notes on the promise of anonymity is proof that Lupin's movements were, indeed, monitored, and it appears Lupin merely returned home to his father, Lyall Lupin, whose own well-being began to decline. Neighbours in their remote Welsh village confirmed they often feared they'd visit to discover one or both Lupins dead in their beds, both of them in such precarious ill-health. With the younger Lupin clearly in no condition to care for a child, the location of Harry Potter might indeed be known to him, but there appears to be no proof of contact in the years ensuing. Lupin eventually quit the long-distance comfort of Beauxbatons, returning to Britain to vanish into the wilds of Muggle England. Until very recently, one could have safely assumed Lupin, destroyed personally and professionally, succumbed to the loneliness of tragedy and faded into nothing but an historical footnote._

 _Until recently, that is. Could it be that Lupin was merely wise to the enquiring minds of his fellow wizards, and bided his time til the furore and fuss had definitively passed? Could he have been so patient, so cool-headed, so sure that interest in Harry Potter would indeed fade, that he could take the risk of joining young Harry in hiding, the better to protect him? Or- one hesitates to make such a bold accusation, but... could it be possible that Lupin had bided his time so well not to_ protect _Harry Potter, but to take control over his fate? He who has the Boy Who Lived would have untold influence over the Wizarding World, and Lupin, a penniless half-blood with nothing left to lose, may well have decided it was time to trade up. In the next chapter, dear reader, learn how Remus Lupin took advantage of the chaos of his old mate Black's daring escape from Azkaban to finally make contact with Harry Potter, and take control of the greatest destiny of Wizardkind._

 _~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from_ Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy


	30. A Crisis of Inevitability

_In Which Finality Echoes._

Dumbledore met Harry at the door, for once, and he was smiling. Harry hovered where the Headmaster's stone escalator had deposited him, a bit surprised to be welcomed so enthusiastically, but then he saw why Dumbledore had gone the extraordinary measure of awaiting him so eagerly. Dumbledore carried Fawkes on his arm, and only a quick grab prevented Fawkes launching himself through the air at Harry.

'Fawkes!' Harry accepted the careful transfer of phoenix claws from Dumbledore's arm to his, wobbling a little under the weight of him. Fawkes had grown over the course of just a week, at least an inch longer, his tail feathers coming in nicely, and his weight was heavier than Harry recalled. But the ecstatic burbles Fawkes issued as he rubbed his beak along Harry's cheek were the same, and Harry stroked lovingly at the soft convex of Fawkes's proud chest, the ridge of his spine, the inside of his wing bone that always elicited a shiver of delight. Fawkes took his place on Harry's shoulder with distinct satisfaction, nipping Harry's glasses with familiar affection.

Dumbledore wore a look of faint resignation when Harry sorted bird and self sufficient to notice they had an interested audience. 'I believe,' Dumbledore murmured, 'I can no longer rightfully claim Fawkes to be my own familiar.'

A spark of guilt in Harry's gut began to flare. 'I didn't mean to,' he said.

'No, Harry, of that I am quite sure. It is Fawkes who has made the choice, and when a phoenix grants his loyalty, it is a thing of great wonder. He finds you worthy- and, of course, he is quite right.' Dumbledore extended a wrinkled hand to rub Fakwes's crest. 'But, given the constraints on space and feeding, might I suggest Fawkes keep his present quarters in my office? I will ensure you are free to visit as you like.'

'I would like that.' Harry bit his lip as Fawkes warbled his own consent. 'We could... we could share him, couldn't we? He wouldn't want to give you up either.'

'Most generous, Harry, and a good solution.' Dumbledore stepped back, and gestured to his desk. 'Will you sit? I think we have several things to discuss.'

Fawkes went back to his perch on the bribe of a seed biscuit, and Harry settled into a wingback chair that was just slightly too large for him, his feet swinging so that only the tips of his trainers brushed the floor. Dumbledore sat behind the big desk, but Harry found he couldn't quite look at the Headmaster. The desk loomed large, huge, even, and all he could think was- it had been right there. It had been right there Voldemort had attacked him, right there where Harry had grabbed up his wand and pointed it and-

And right there, just behind him, where a new rug lay over the spot Quirinus Quirrell had burnt to death.

'Mimsy,' Dumbledore said, and a house elf appeared, beaming first at the Headmaster and then at Harry. 'Two hot chocolates, if you would. A splash of whiskey for me, if you don't mind, and extra whipped cream for Mr Potter.' Dumbledore winked at Harry over the gold rim of his spectacles. 'He's not quite old enough for the whiskey, just yet, for all I find it settles the nerves nicely.'

Neither spoke as they waited for Mimsy to return with their mugs. Harry tried to look around a bit, anything to look at but the desk, and noticed the mess had been cleaned up as if it had never been, though some of the delicate silver instruments and quite a lot of the glass ones were missing now, broken and irreplaceable. The sun streaming in through the windows was strong, and the mountains not so snowy in the distance, the lawns growing green once more now spring had taken firm hold. It was quite beautiful, but Harry felt cold, even when he had his chocolate in hand.

Dumbledore broke the silence at last. He said, 'I must begin, Harry, with an apology.'

'Sir?'

'Surely by now you have realised I bear the brunt of responsibility for what happened to you.'

'No, sir.' Harry set aside his mug when his hands began to shake. 'It was my fault. I'm the one who- I was worried about Sirius, so I made Professor Snape and Mr Malfoy and Mr Flamel help me trick Voldemort into thinking they were going to put the Stone into the Pensieve, and that brought him back to the school. If I hadn't done that, he wouldn't have come back, I think. And he wouldn't have murdered the unicorns and he wouldn't have scared everyone and been able to get inside and he wouldn't... he would still be alive.'

'That you were impetuous in your desire to save your godfather is true, but you were hardly alone in that decision. I have had long conversations already with Nicolas Flamel, not to mention Professor Snape.' Dumbledore examined Harry over the course of a long pause. 'Their support for you in contravention of my express wishes caused me some distress, as you might imagine. I have had to confront my own assumptions, which is not a comforting prospect for a man of my age. No man likes to believe he may become a tyrant, and I had thought I had taken sufficient cautions against empowering myself above the rights of others to make their own decisions. Instead, it appears I had come to expect unquestioning obedience.' Dumbledore paused again, but his examination turned inward, this time, as Harry stared at him, bewildered by this strange confession. 'I don't suppose you understand entirely what I say,' Dumbledore finished abruptly. 'But I suspect you may have cause to, one day. You are a leader of men, Harry- and women, of course, one should not discount Ms Granger- but a leader stands above his fellows in both power and responsibility. Responsibility should, must, always weight heavier than power.'

Harry wiped at his face the instant he registered the wet on his cheeks. 'Sir.'

'You have my apology, then, for my role in what took place at the school this year, and for what took place in this office in particular. But let me also ease your mind about the role you played, Harry. You are not responsible for Quirinus Quirrell's death.'

'I am, though. It was my magic.'

'The fire was, yes. But not its effect. Quirinus was already in a desperately fragile state,' Dumbledore said heavily. 'You may recall from your first encounter with Quirrell in the Forest that the murder of a unicorn is an act of evil- and that the deliberate murder of a unicorn for its blood may achieve very Dark effect.' He waited on Harry's nod. 'As a Defence Against the Dark Arts expert, Quirrell knew well what he risked. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death- but at a terrible price. To slay a creature of purity and Light is to inflict upon yourself a kind of half-life. A decay which begins in the soul and corrupts the body. Quirinus was already quite ill when he escaped the school; you may have noticed the signs yourself. Copious perspiration, his paleness, his odour- he used garlic to cover it, but the scent of rot was noticeable. The mass murder of unicorns he committed on his last living night ensured his death. Voldemort sacrificed his host for a final opportunity to seize the Philosopher's Stone. He must have believed another host was readily available.'

A wash of sick took Harry. 'Me,' he rasped.

'So I suspect. Harry, look at me, please.' Harry dragged his eyes up, but Dumbledore swam in his sight. He yanked at his glasses til they came off, to rub his eyes. Dumbledore smiled sadly. 'Fortunately, he failed again. You have defeated him twice, Harry. That is a remarkable achievement.'

'I'm glad he's gone.' Harry wiped his face on his sleeve. 'Is that evil? To be glad he's dead?'

Dumbledore's mouth pursed. He seemed to hesitate. 'No,' he said slowly. 'No, it's not an evil wish. He is...'

Was, Harry almost corrected him, and it laid there, leaden and unfinished. Dumbledore looked utterly ancient in that long moment.

The Headmaster sighed, then. 'Well,' he murmured, 'in with both feet. Harry. We must speak now of a related matter. I have been informed you did not return to your relatives during the break.'

'My-' Harry caught himself up short, wondering. Then he locked his jaw stubbornly. 'No, sir, I didn't.'

'You must, my boy.'

'Why?' Harry challenged him boldy. 'They only want the money, they don't care about me.'

'I'm sure that's not true, Harry.'

'It is!'

'But even if it is true,' Dumbledore went on gently, 'you must still return to them.'

'Because of the blood wards?'

It seemed he could surprise the old man. Dumbledore nodded cautiously. 'You know of them?'

'I know my mother cast a strange spell to save me. But I don't know she bound it to my aunt. Why would she? They didn't get on, and my aunt never cared about me. They hate magic. The ward's bound to me.'

Dumbledore was obviously picking his words with care. 'That sounds like the opinion of a certain scholarly friend of your acquaintance.'

'You mean Professor Lupin?' Both feet in. Harry took the plunge. 'Yeah,' he said. 'That's what he told me, and it's true. And I know it's true because I haven't been with the Dursleys for a long time and the only one who ever found me was Lupin.'

'Haven't been with them for a long time? What does this mean?'

'It means they gave me up,' Harry told him bitterly. 'They got shot of me a long time ago. I remember it now. They dumped me in the middle of the night at a police station and ran away so they couldn't be blamed when I disappeared. The first time I'd seen them in all those years was here in your office.'

'I am very sorry to hear that. You have no idea how sorry.' Dumbledore's brows met in a deep frown, his hands washing slowly in an oddly vulnerable gesture. 'But you must see, Harry, how it is connected.'

'Connected? How what's connected?'

'Voldemort's return, and the breaking of the blood wards.'

That rocked him from his surety. 'He... he came back because of me?'

'No, you are hardly to blame for what your aunt and uncle did. But the weakening of that essential bond enabled Voldemort to gather his strength, seek out an ally, and wield enough magic to possess a willing host.' Dumbledore caught Harry's eyes. 'And how it will assuredly happen again, if you do not resume that bond.'

'A... again?'

'He is not dead. Quirrell, yes- as I have told you, he was already dying when you fought against him, and in the doing what was still human was destroyed. But Voldemort has become something more than human- or, rather, something less. I have known for some time he experimented with Dark Arts to, as he thought, enhance his body and, as we now know, lengthen his life. That he can survive in some essence or spirit form is the only explanation for how he was able to possess Quirrell so thoroughly; possession by the dead or unanchored souls leaves tell-tale signs. And I very much fear- I very much believe, Harry- that Voldemort, already prepared to sacrifice Quirrell's dying body, escaped again. How long it will be before he is able to find a suitable host, I cannot guess, but I know what must be done to prepare against that eventuality. I know what must be done to protect you, and in turn protect us all.'

'Sirius Black signed papers to adopt me.'

Dumbledore took a breath. Then he nodded. 'I am glad. Though I have not yet had an opportunity, I did wish to congratulate him on his release. On his long-awaited reunion with you.'

Harry had his own thoughts on this, but let it pass for the moment. 'So if he's my guardian now, that's good enough for the blood wards, isn't it?'

'He is not a blood relation, Harry. Adoption does not change that. But perhaps Sirius would be willing to join you at the Dursleys, or agree to some arrangement, an exchange of custody for a period suitable to the requirements.'

'But-'

'I would not ask it if it were not of such great importance, Harry.'

'You're not asking at all!' Harry cried, echoed by Fawkes's agitated caw.

Dumbledore cast a haunted look at the phoenix, and sighed again. 'No,' he said regretfully. 'I'm not asking, Harry.'

* * *

Harry had imagined many times how it would be to be adopted. There would be a smiling mum with pretty hair curling at her shoulders. There would be a proud papa with a stern face but winking eyes, and he would be tall but not too tall, with big hands and a nice suit. They would have a car that was filled with presents for him, and they would drive him far away to their new home, just the three of them- well, sometimes he'd imagined himself a brother or sister, but it would be far more special to be just himself with them, and they'd begin their new life together, the happiest of families.

As he'd grown, of course, Harry had stopped hoping for that. Hope was a silly thing, in some ways, a difficult thing in others, but largely Harry came to feel that hope was simply misplaced in his life. It was all right to hope for small things, like a dinner you enjoyed or a snow day when you wanted to linger abed, but hoping for anything bigger was begging to be disappointed. Harry had learnt to be very careful what he hoped for. But here he was, sat at the dining table with the Lupins and Sirius and Glynnie and it was a very strange thing to look round at each of them and realise he hadn't been the only one afraid of hoping.

Sirius penned his name with a hand that shook so badly Lupin stopped him, holding his fingers in a tight squeeze and a mute smile that quavered just as much. Mr Lupin signed, too, and his eyes were on his son as much as they were on Harry, and there was a softness in there the gruff old man would no doubt have denied if he'd been caught at it. When Harry signed, everyone held their breath a little, as if lightning might strike, or the earth open under their feet. The scratch of the quill on parchment was the only sound other than the hammering of Harry's heart in his chest, but then it was done- it was done, three names marching down the parchment in wet gleaming ink, sealing the adoption.

Glynnie had them all jumping when she blew a horn in a tooting celebration, flinging a handful of ticker tape glitter at them. Harry grinned, abashed, and Sirius laughed as Mr Lupin honked his nose in a kerchief in an almost exact imitation of the horn, and then Professor Lupin led them in a chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' as Glynnie fetched the cake she had just iced, and if Harry brushed away wet from his eyes once or twice, he wasn't alone in that.

He wasn't alone in anything, anymore.

* * *

'What do you think?' Sirius asked, gesturing broadly. His wave encompassed- well, everything, so far as Harry could tell. The rolling hills were dotted here and there with sheep, spotted in orange or pink- Lupin said it was a farming tradition to keep track of their herds when they mixed on common lands- as if to mimic the deep blue of the endless sky, dotted here and there with fluffy white clouds. And perched there in the centre of that impressive vista was a mansion of high Tudor style, surrounded by a moat of greenish waters and manicured gardens.

'Is all this yours?' Harry wondered, quite dazzled by it all.

'This? Hardly. My mother loathed the country. You should see the hovel they kept in London- mouldy old pit stinking with their filthy Pureblood notions. There's a thought, eh, Moony? Maybe I'll burn it to the ground and we can all stay here instead-'

'It's the Potter Manor,' Lupin interrupted gently, the way Harry had started to realise he did whenever Sirius was veering into a mood. 'It belonged to your grandfather Fleamont. I don't believe your parents ever lived in it, though, but they did honeymoon here. In fact I believe there's a tree in the garden they planted together.'

'Oh, that's... nice.'

'He doesn't care about old trees,' Sirius teased, slinging an arm about Harry's shoulders. 'So what you think, eh, Harry? Big enough for you?'

'More than,' he said fervently. 'So this, this is all mine now?'

'Technically, my father holds it in trust for you,' Lupin explained, or apologised, one shoulder hunched, 'that's the entail business again. And, as of nine o'clock this morning, Sirius Black has become Sirius Potter, so I suppose the two of you will have to learn to share.'

'That's all right then,' Harry agreed, rather relieved. A house this big seemed a bit burdensome for a boy who hadn't yet had his first year exams. He hadn't the first clue what people did to keep up houses. Lupin would know, and he could tell Sirius, surely.

Or not. Sirius gave off a startlingly realistic bark, for a man, but a moment later he wasn't a man at all. Harry's big black dog wagged his shaggy tail, wriggled a figure eight about first Harry then Lupin's legs, and took off in a bounding gambol toward the house.

'Oh, Padfoot, don't, the water,' Lupin protested, but it was resignation in advance of the fact more than hope. Sirius took a flying leap straight into the moat, landing with a glorious splash.

Exploring the house took a couple of hours. It reminded Harry very much of his vault in Gringott's, full of old expensive anitques. Lupin greeted the library like an old friend, going dreamy-eyed at the sight of thousands of books and wandering off into the stacks without so much as a good-bye, fingers trailing lovingly over leather bindings as he drifted off. 'He'll be in La-La Land for hours,' Sirius moaned, squelching up the hall, and Harry laughed and followed him. They had an impromptu game of hide-and-seek, which Harry won by stashing himself in a dusty old wardrobe full of furs, but he was distracted from trying to locate the back of the surprisingly deep cedar trunk by an odd rushing wind. Harry poked his head around a huge bearskin coat that might have hung large on a man of Hagrid's size, and found himself nose-to-nose with a filmy white ghost.

'Oh,' Harry said, quite shocked. The chill emanating from the ghost put frost in his hair, and he shivered. 'Hul-l-lo,' he chattered, teeth knocking.

'Hullo,' said the ghost. 'Who're you, then?'

'I'm Harry. Harry Potter.' He put out a hand, pure habit, and the ghost smiled. She was a plain-looking girl, or had been, in life; her luminescent halo lent her an air of angelic grace, and her grey eyes lightened in laughter.

'It's better for you if we don't press hands,' she told him gently. 'But your manners are very pretty. I was called Gwendolyn when I was alive.'

'Nice to meet you.' Harry twisted a sleeve of soft rabbit fur through his fingers. 'Um, are we maybe related?'

'I'm not a Potter, no. I am...' She tilted her head. 'Something rather different. I've been here a very long time. If you look hard enough, you could find my bones. The old tombs beneath the house have been quiet these long, long years.'

'Tombs? Like a graveyard?'

'Something a little different than that, Harry Potter.' She drifted closer, spreading ice over a foxfur cloak, and Harry shrank back involuntarily, chilled to the bone. 'I've waited centuries for someone to unchain me. Your ancestors were cruel folk, to bind me here... abandon me here... I've been lonely, Harry Potter. Will you swear to seek me out? Swear to free me?'

'Found you!'

Sirius flung open the wardrobe door with a grin, which transformed to a thunderous scowl on finding Gwendolyn there. She didn't greet Sirius with a smile, either, but bared her teeth at him, hissing, and launched out of the wardrobe with her hands- her claws extended to rake his flesh- Harry barely had time to holler a warning when a cool voice issued a magical command.

 _'Confringo,'_ said Lupin, wand aimed over Sirius's shoulder, and Gwendolyn hurtled back into the wardrobe with a shriek. Sirius grabbed Harry by the shoulder and hauled him out, and threw shut the doors, locking them with a flick of his own wand.

'Right,' Lupin grimaced. 'That's the last time I let the two of you alone.' Sirius snorted.

'What was that?' Harry demanded, shaken.

'That,' Professor Lupin told him, falling into his 'professor' voice, 'was a Lamia. A child-eating daemon.'

Harry goggled. 'She wanted to eat me?' he squeaked.

'She wouldn't have been able to eat you in her current form,' Lupin assured him. 'But she would have tried to trick you into releasing her bones, which would free her from confinement.'

'And then, yeah, she'd've eaten you,' Sirius finished. 'Sorry. My fault, a bit. Didn't remember the Potters had that sort of business here.'

'Shouldn't have,' Lupin disapproved. 'And now you've got the entail, Sirius, I highly recommend you use your authority to scrub out a few undesirables in the house.'

'Ugh, cleaning? _Moooo_ ny. Can't we get a house elf for that sort of thing?'

'No house elves,' Harry said hastily. 'They're really weird around me.'

Sirius ruffled Harry's hair. 'Never liked the little buggers myself. You should meet the awful little bint my mother kept at Grimmauld Place. Kreacher- yech. Always lurking about spying on us. He hated me, the twisted little wretch. He'd run tattling to Mummy every five minutes to fetch me a whipping. Say, Moony, there's a thought. When I burn down Grimmauld maybe I can order him to go down with the ship.'

'Lunch?' Lupin interrupted. 'Nothing like a good scare to rouse the appetite.'

'Moony,' Sirius interrupted right back, and his voice had gone hard, hard like the expression on his face, mulish and dark. 'You can't go on treating me like a child if you don't like what I have to say.'

Lupin glanced at Harry, hesitating. 'No, of course not. I'm not trying to- I'm sorry.'

'And don't go flinching every time you think I'm angry!'

Lupin cupped his elbow. 'Why don't we discuss this-'

'Privately?' Sirius shook him off. 'Nothing to discuss. Full stop, that's what I've got to say, and that's all there is to say anyway. Coming, Harry?'

'Oh, er.' Harry jumped. Sirius didn't wait on his answer, anyway, shouldering Lupin out of the way to take Harry by the wrist, dragging him along. Harry cast a helpless look over his shoulder as Sirius dragged him out.

Lunch was subdued, after that. Glynnie had packed them a picnic of sorts, and they ate in an atrium full of overgrown trees and ornamental flowering bushes. They spread a blanket on the ground in the middle of a dried-out wading pool and shared a basket of cheese, thick grainy bread, fruit and leftover ham, but good as the food was they ate in silence. Sirius was stewing, Lupin looked guilty and upset and weary of hiding it, and Harry couldn't think of a way to help anything. At last Sirius struck up a conversation about Quidditch, and Harry recounted the details of his games to Sirius's avid attention. Lupin picked a bunch of grapes into mush, staring off into the roses.

'So you think you could live here?' Lupin asked, when the upcoming Slytherin game had been hashed quite to death.

'It's awfully big for just us,' Harry said, and Lupin smiled a little at last. 'What happened to my parents' house? If they didn't live here, where did they live?'

'In a place called Godric's Hollow.'

'Hang on, I've heard of that. Dumbledore's from there, he said that at Christmas.'

'It's a magical village, like Hogsmeade. Most of the southern Purebloods are rooted there; a few families, like the Weasleys, struck out away from the communities.'

'Oh. But then they've got a house there?'

'Not exactly. It was... it was damaged the night Voldemort attacked.'

'Are you trying to be obscure?' Sirius said. 'Voldemort destroyed it, Harry. It's how he broke past the wards. There was hardly any of it left when he was through.'

'Sirius.'

'Remus,' Sirius retorted. 'You don't have to coddle him, he's not a child.'

'He's eleven, Sirius, he's-'

'He killed a wizard twice his size with nothing but a wand, he's a damn fine warlock if you ask me!'

'Killing a man isn't one of your bloody adventures!'

'I didn't say it was!' Sirius shouted, slamming his fist into his knee. 'Damn it, Moony, we fought a war, we know better than anyone what it is to kill a man, I'm bloody grateful he's so capable!'

'We were seventeen,' Lupin bit back. 'We knew what we were doing, we volunteered. Harry's a boy, it's our job to protect him-'

'From the truth?'

'Of course not.'

'Then what are we arguing about?' Sirius demanded. He shoved to his feet and stalked away. At the edge of the atrium he dropped to all fours and slid into his dog form, and galloped swiftly away into the shadows.

Lupin dragged a hand over his face. He began to pack away their meal. Harry helped, wrapping the cheese in its cloth and the ham in wax paper, tucking it back into the basket. 'I'm sorry,' Lupin said, as Harry packed away their thermos of tea.

Harry nodded diffidently. 'Is he... is he going to be all right?'

'He'll be back in twenty minutes going on about something interesting he found in some locked room, all forgot.'

'I meant-' Harry bit his lips together. 'I meant will he be all right, ever, I guess.'

'Oh, Harry. Yes, I'm sure he will do.' Lupin forced a smile. 'In a way, I'm relieved he's letting it out. Ten years ago he'd've died before he said anything.'

Lupin didn't look especially relieved, however, when Sirius rejoined them an hour later not to chatter about something interesting he'd found, but to say, firmly and emotionlessly, that he intended to accompany Harry back to King's Cross Station to see him off to Hogwarts in the morning.

'Don't give me that look,' Sirius told Lupin shortly. 'It's my decision.'

'Of course it is.' Lupin hesitated. 'Only it's not perhaps the wisest decision.'

'I'm innocent, I'm not going to act guilty and hide away.'

'Until your trial,' Lupin began.

'And you'll be there with me. I'm not hiding anything. I'm not one for secrets and plotting and I'm proud of it, anyway- proud of you and Harry. I want the world to know.' And he stepped forward and kissed Lupin fiercely, gripping him hard at the waist and then cupping his cheeks as he stood back. 'If you'll have me again.'

Lupin's face was flaming red. 'Do you even want me?' he whispered. 'You don't have to, I don't expect... I've changed, I've got old-'

Sirius gave off a hitched laugh. 'Love, you've been old ever since I met you. At least now you can't claim I gave you all your grey hairs.' He turned serious, or nearly. Brightness lurked in his eyes. 'Be brave, Moony. Us against the world. Tell me you don't want to see their stupid faces all agog.' He tugged the lapels of Lupin's blazer. 'Us against the world.'

'Us against the world.' Lupin sagged into his taller frame, hiding his face in Sirius's neck. But then he laughed, a genuine laugh this time, full of life, and he turned and put out a hand for Harry. 'The three of us against the world,' he said, and Harry grinned.

'Yeah,' he agreed, and Sirius ruffled his hair and yanked him in for a hug. 'And your Da,' he added.

'And Da, yes.'

So it was Harry had quite a lot of company escorting him to Platform 9 3/4. Just a week ago Harry had hated the sight of the platform, sure he was walking to his doom. It was an amazing thing, how much could change in such a few short days. Harry felt he walked a little straighter, a little taller, with a hand on each of his shoulders- Sirius at his left, Mr Lupin at his right- but it was Remus who told him not to worry about them, go find his friends. So Harry ran ahead, toward the squeal of his name that shrieked out of the crowd, and there was Hermione, and Cedric and Neville together, and Ron and the rest of the Weasleys, a veritable crowd of gingers all chattering happily, but Harry strained to see past them, searching for a lone head of white-blonde hair.

Draco stood all alone, a small figure beside his trunk, his chin stuck in the air. Crabbe and Goyle were off to one side, engaged in one of their useless shoving matches, and Theo Nott was nearby talking to Millie Bulstrode, but Draco had a little well of space all to his own, and he looked entirely miserable behind the porcelain shell of his cold face. He looked frozen, as if it were winter still, only for him.

Harry halted just in front of him, and said, 'Come meet my family.'

'Harry.' Draco blinked himself out of a daze. 'Your... Muggle family?'

'Better,' Harry said.

'A half-blood, a Black, and someone who dresses worse than Cornelius Fudge,' Draco said in his old haughty way, but his spine lost its painful rigidity. 'They won't... they won't want to meet me.'

'You already know Remus and Sirius.' Harry licked his lips. 'Where's your mum and dad?'

'I didn't want them here.'

'I'm sorry.'

Draco twitched a bit. He heaved a heavy sigh. 'Don't be different, now.'

'I am, though,' Harry said. 'It'd be strange not to be.'

'I hate how you do that.'

'Make sense?' Harry guessed drily. 'Come on, then, I know you're not shy.'

'Prat.'

'You are.' Harry put on a lopsided grin, and Draco reluctantly began to smile. He smothered it with a haughty grimace. 'You know,' Harry added, 'I think we might be cousins now, sort of.'

'As if this day could get any worse,' Draco scoffed, but the darkness in his face had gone at last, and when Harry tugged, he came.

* * *

'Harry, you should eat something. The bell's about to ring any moment.'

'Not hungry,' he mumbled, though he stripped his glasses to rub at eyes that felt like sandpaper. He felt as though he'd been sleepwalking all day; he hadn't heard a word in Transfiguration, and even in Charms, where he usually did quite well, he'd barely managed to correctly cast the Blue Bell flame spell. He'd been working at his letter to Sirius and Remus all lunch hour, and his parchment was more crossings-out than whole sentences.

'Harry, please,' Hermione pleaded, and he put out his hand and let her place a half a sandwich in it. He took a bite without even tasting whatever its contents were, and dropped it to his empty plate.

'All right, so what you going to do about it?' Ron asked practically, dropping his elbows onto the table and frowning at Harry.

'There's nothing I can do,' Harry admitted gloomily. 'He's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.'

'It's not fair.'

It was horrid unfair, and Harry didn't have the faintest idea what to do about it. He scratched out the last sentence he'd written, which was gibberish anyway. He crumpled the parchment and hurled it away.

It bounced off the black robes of the teacher who had appeared across the table. Ron winced, and Harry stammered an apology. Severus Snape arched a dark brow, and summoned the parchment to his hand. 'Littering, Potter?'

'Sorry, sir.'

'What's behind this fit of pique, precisely?'

Hermione kicked Harry's shin beneath the table. 'Tell him,' she hissed.

'What?'

'She said to tell me,' Snape clarified helpfully. 'And she is quite correct.'

The bell rang, as promised, and the food vanished, including Harry's uneaten sandwich. The chatter in the Great Hall became instead a great clatter of benches being shoved back and rucksacks grabbed, boots striking the flagstones as students headed for the doors. Harry was moved by virtue of the Weasley twins, who forced their seat back, taking him with it.

'Detention, Potter,' Snape declared rather airily. 'For careless discarding of personal post. My office at seven.'

Harry ground his jaws together. Perfect. 'Yes, sir,' he said sullenly.

The second brow joined the first in climbing Snape's forehead. 'If you prefer the student body to gossip about you seeking the advice of the dungeon bat, you're welcome to risk it.'

'Oh. _Oh._ '

'Quite, Potter.' With that, Snape swept away.

Harry felt suddenly a little bit lighter.

Snape had taken Harry's letter with him, so he was fully informed by the time Harry reported for his detention. And, best of all, he had a solution. Harry had barely sat himself when Snape was placing a fresh roll of parchment and an inkpot before Harry.

'Write as I dictate,' Snape said. '"To The Honourable Chief Auror, Rufus Scrimgeour."'

Harry wrote as fast as he could whilst still producing recognisable letters, something he didn't do well with quills, but jerked his head up when he heard the name. 'Scrimgeour?'

'Write, Potter.'

'Er... how do you spell...'

Snape gave him the letters impatiently. '"To the Honourable Chief Auror, Rufus Scrimgeour. Dear sir. By now it has surely come to your attention that a crime has been perpetuated-"'

'Per-what?'

'"Per-pet-u-ated over the course of several years. But for my ignorance of the law of the Wizarding World I would have made it known immediately, and can only plead you will forgive my impertinence in-"'

'Imper-'

'"Impertinence in seeking your counsel rather than the appropriate channels, as I am uncertain how to properly report it. As you may be aware, my mother, Lily Potter, nee Evans, had a Muggle sister. When my parents were murdered by He Who Must Not Be Named, I was given into the safekeeping of my mother's sister. This was done in secrecy, without review or due process by the Wizengamot. Though I do not know who committed me to their custody-"'

'But I do know,' Harry interrupted. 'Dumbledore did it.'

'Write, boy. Though I do not know who committed me to their custody, I have since learnt that the abuse of Wizarding children by Muggles is unlawful. It is my hope you will assist me in navigating the proper- I told you to write, Potter.'

'How did you know,' Harry breathed.

Snape faced away from him. 'Never mind that.'

'No. Tell me how you knew.'

Snape's fingers spread delicately along the edge of his desk, fingertips just barely touching the wood. 'The story is not mine to tell.'

'No, it's mine!'

Snape's head lowered to his chest. 'The Pensieve memory, Potter.'

Harry's shaking hand had spattered the parchment with fat drops of ink. 'I don't... I don't understand.'

'The Dark Lord. He ensnared the Headmaster and Nicolas Flamel within the Pensieve, in a particular memory which could not be escaped, being of unusual length. Just short of three years, I believe. The years you...' Snape seemed to struggle to find words. 'The years you were- held- by your Muggle relatives.'

Harry felt faint. He tried to swallow, his throat horribly dry. 'They saw. You- saw.'

'I saw more than enough to know this letter is eminently justified, Potter. You do not want to return. No-one in their right mind should want you returned there.'

'Dumbledore says I have to.'

'Dumbledore has the power we give him and nothing more,' Snape said harshly, whirling about. 'He orders lives and souls into the breach because we lifted him up as our general. Tell me how that makes him different than the Dark Lord, if our only choices are dictated to us by one voice and one alone? That we trust him to do good by us is immaterial if he violates that trust. I walked away from one tyrant and gave myself into the hands of one who claimed to be better than that, and will do so no longer. If you want your freedom, Potter, prepare to fight for it.'

Harry stared down at his half-finished letter, canting sharply across the parchment. His head felt a bit swimmy and hot, but his gut was cold. 'I want it,' he said, his heart pounding. 'But the blood wards... what if I'm wrong?'

'Then you make a choice, Potter. To live with the consequences. But it is still your choice.'

Harry bit his lip til it numbed. Choice. Yes. Yes, it was. And he would be brave.

He picked up his quill, curled his fingers about it, and poised the nib on the parchment. 'All right,' he said. 'Navigating the proper?'

Snape smiled faintly. 'Good man,' he murmured.


	31. Adaptation

_In Which All Involved Resolve Together._

 _The Daily Prophet_ had its best-selling issue in months, covering the chaos at the school and the death of a professor. In its usual sensationalist manner, it reported every rumour, no matter how small or discreditable, and ran a dozen contradictory headlines all on the same page, seven different editorials speculating the impact of events- universally dire- and suggesting a range of practical to deeply illegal responses to various perceived threats. Rita Skeeter had a small, sulky-toned column on page nine attempting to assert she'd seen it all coming, but she held very carefully to the edges of reality, and Harry's name didn't appear once in it. She was the only one who didn't make that connexion, likely explaining her banishment to the back pages. Harry was rather viciously pleased about it, for all it made no practical difference for him. The rest of the staff at the paper had more than made up for Skeeter's lack.

No-one seemed to know exactly what had happened, but some of their guesses came awfully close to the truth. With dripping concern for the safety of the Boy Who Lived, the _Prophet_ 's reporters imagined the worst in every possible scenario, and the worst they could imagine was Quirrell performing evil experiments on Harry- which he had, sort of- or Quirrell falling victim to Harry's manifesting magical powers- which he had, more or less. How they all knew Harry had confronted Quirrell at all, Harry could only guess at: and one look at Draco, flushed hot red and distressed where he sat at the Slytherin dining table across the Hall, told Harry his guess was quite probably correct. There was not one mention in the entire paper about Lucius Malfoy having even been at Hogwarts when the attack happened. That was a very interesting ommission, as Hermione noted darkly.

The mood at Hogwarts was subdued. The brief holiday had restored the worst-off, but there were far fewer smiles to be seen amongst the student body, and the teachers were snappish and Hagrid was seen sniffling into a duvet-sized hanky about the grounds. Dumbledore had taken over teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, and would not entertain questions about what had happened to Quirrell, instead setting them to work on a charm that made you giggle uncontrollably. It did lift the black cloud hanging over Hogwarts, and became a favourite prank in the corridors for a week, but for Harry there was little relief from the anxiety plaguing him.

Scrimgeour had not replied at all to Harry's letter- well, he'd had a reply, but it was a form letter, Snape said, thanking Harry for his enquiry and promising an answer with all possible speed. Snape told him not to be discouraged (ordered him to stop moping, more like), but whenever Harry wasn't busy, his mind was on the Chief Auror, wondering.

He had no reply, either, from Remus and Sirius, to whom he had finally managed to send a letter about the Headmaster's intent to return him to the Dursleys. Considering Remus had always written him back near immediately, Harry worried at this too. He told himself they were only busy, with preparations for Sirius's trial likely consuming their time and energy. A date had been set, for mid-summer, according to the _Prophet_. No-one had brought it up with Harry, but he knew from listening at doors when they thought he was in bed that they intended to look for Peter Pettigrew. Sirius seemed far more convinced it could be done than the typically-cautious Remus, but Harry chafed at his growing fear he'd already been forgot. It was no good having guardians if they couldn't be bothered to guard him against things.

All in all, it was four nerve-wracking days before it all broke wide open.

* * *

The first session of Latin Review after the holiday lasted about ten minutes' worth of revision. Shocking them all, Hermione pushed aside her books, planted her elbows on the table, and said, 'I think we should plan, then.'

Heads swivelled to Harry. He blinked at being suddenly thrust into leadership. 'Er,' he said, not exactly a brilliant beginning, but he hadn't the foggiest what Hermione was talking about.

'For what happens next!' Hermione said, volume rising in frustration, but before Madam Pince could appear to shush them Hermione stacked her kitten-themed three-ring binder into place as a barrier and bent to whisper behind its shelter. 'You said Professor Dumbledore told you he thinks You-Know-Who will return. So? I think we should plan.'

Cedric began to grin. 'I was about to say how you didn't end up in Ravenclaw, but then I realised. Only a Gryffindor would be planning how to attack, not keep away.'

'There is no keeping away,' Harry said, lowering his eyes to his notebook. He'd done more doodling in classes all week than work, and might've been docked points for it if all the teachers weren't acting so odd with him. They all clearly knew what he'd done to Quirrell, and though none had directly spoken to him about it, they were all on tenterhooks with him, avoiding calling on him and letting him slip through assignments with work even Harry knew was only minimally Acceptable. Even Snape had given him an Exceeds Expectations on his Bitterberry Antidote, and it had looked like a cauldron full of Heinz beans, not the translucent pink mousse it was meant to be. 'Dumbledore says if I don't go back to the Dursleys, eventually he'll be strong enough to come back.'

'So we plan,' Hermione said again, as if the conclusion were entirely obvious.

Harry slammed shut his book. 'Why don't you just say it, Hermione? The plan is I should go back to the Dursleys. I don't know what I was thinking, it's selfish, it's wrong-'

'I wouldn't go,' said Neville.

It was a timid interruption, and Neville was looking anywhere but at his classmates. His doughy cheeks were pale, and he sat on his hands, legs swinging slowly as he stared off into the stacks.

Ron was chewing at his lower lip, and he shrugged awkwardly. 'Maybe it won't be that bad,' he offered. 'It's just like visiting Aunt Muriel. I don't want to do it but I have to, every summer. And you won't be giving up your godfather.'

Draco dropped his sugar quill and folded his arms on the table. 'Dumbledore didn't actually say going to the Dursleys would stop You-Know-Who coming back. He just said it was connected to the blood wards.'

'You're right,' Hermione said thoughtfully. 'Harry, you're sure you told us exactly what Dumbledore said?'

Harry forced himself to stop picking at his thumbnail. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'I think so? I'm not sure. All I know is he said I have to go back, and Snape said I should fight it.'

'So you stay at the Dursleys until you're as old and grey as the Headmaster?' Draco retorted. 'It would never end, would it. You'd be failing everyone by dying of old age, if that's the only thing stopping him.'

'No, just til I'm seventeen, he says.'

'And what happens at seventeen?'

'The blood wards recognise me as having reached my magical majority and they fall, because they're only meant to protect me til then.'

'And what happens when they fall?'

'Well- I dunno. Nothing?'

'Exactly. There's nothing stopping You-Know-Who just staring at his non-existent navel for six more years and popping up fully resurrected the moment the wards go down. You'll just have to deal with it then. I don't see it's much different than doing it now.'

Hermione had tired of waiting for them to argue themselves around. She had a parchment roll, and now spread it out down the table between them all, securing the edges with a few weights and Ron's unused inkpot. 'I've begun a list of all the factors I could think of, starting with Sirius finding you at your school.'

'Sirius turned out to be a goodie, not a baddie,' Ron reminded her.

'I've included everything, not just the bad things. I've got it all separated by columns, and this one here is for the things we're not sure about yet, like the unicorn blood.'

It was an appallingly long list, really. 'How does this help me?' Harry wondered.

'Us,' Neville said, and turned with a hard gulp. He pulled his chair in closer, and used his quill to ink a new factor at the very top of the parchment. 'And you should go back to the beginning. When You-Know-Who killed the Potters.'

'And Lupin finding you first, actually, at your school,' Cedric added, writing it in. 'How long did it take him?'

'I was six or seven.' Reluctantly Harry engaged, smudging a knuckle in fresh ink as he looked over the list. 'Don't forget the Gringotts break-in.'

'That's all part of the business with the Philospher's Stone, though.'

'Yeah, but how did Dumbledore know he should take it from Mr Flamel and put it in Gringotts if he didn't know yet that Quirrell had only come to Hogwarts to make him bring the Stone out where Voldemort could get at it?' He'd been wondering at many of the things Voldemort had said to him that night in Dumbledore's office, the patchy bits he remembered anyway- too much of it was jumbled up, but he remembered that. The lengths Voldemort said he'd gone to, to get to the Stone. 'Did Dumbledore suspect something even before he hired on Quirrell?'

'The unicorns,' Ron guessed. 'The Forest has the largest population in Britain. Ten to one that unicorn you found dead in the Forest the day of your Quidditch game wasn't the first one Quirrell- You-Know- Quirrellmort killed. Only he realised the unicorn blood was making him ill, so then he must have realised the Stone would be a better idea?'

'Oh, that's good, Ron,' Cedric agreed. 'There's unicorns in lots of other countries, too; didn't Quirrell-'

'Quirrellmort.'

'Quirrell-mort say he'd been in Albania? Hermione, did you come across-'

'You didn't write my father on the list.'

Everyone cringed a little from Draco's flat interruption. No-one spoke, and Hermione's face was filled with pity. It made Draco glare all the harder. 'Do it, then,' he demanded.

Hermione hesitated with her pen. The nib hovered between the column for good factors and the column for bad, as Hermione slowly flushed. But Draco seized the pen, and jabbed it at the parchment, writing LUCIUS MALFOY so that it crossed all three columns, the tail of the Y cutting over an unevenly scraped patch in the paper and forming a jagged lightning bolt. Then Draco tossed down the pen, grabbed up his rucksack and books, and left without a word more.

'Don't,' Cedric advised softly, when Harry began to rise. 'Give him some space.'

'He's not wrong, though.' Hermione drooped over her list. 'We don't know which Lucius Malfoy is, do we? He helped you with Rita Skeeter, but he turned against you the night You-Know-Who attacked Hogwarts, and we don't know if he did it because he was cursed or if he just wants everyone to think he was cursed.'

'Even if he wasn't cursed, we don't know why he did it.' Harry rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. Even the good glasses Snape had got him dug into his nose after a full day, leaving a sore spot on the bridge. 'That's the weirdest thing about wizards. I don't understand why any of them do anything.'

'Oi,' Ron said, playing at being offended. 'You're a wizard, too, mate.'

'Raised by Muggles,' Harry replied by rote, and frowned. Something seemed significant about that, but he wasn't sure what.

'What do we do with the list once it's finished, Hermione?' Cedric asked.

'We figure out how to maximise the good factors and protect against the bad ones,' she answered. 'And we watch out for the unknowns. And it's up to all of us- and it's up to you, Harry,' she said, quite seriously. 'No more secrets. You don't have to do it all by yourself.'

'The list doesn't tell you how not to get hurt helping me,' he retorted, surprising himself how bitter it sounded. He sagged, dropping his chin to his books. 'I should go back to the Dursleys. Even if it only stops Voldemort for six years, at least we'd have time to grow up and get stronger and, and, figure it out, wouldn't we.'

'You'd be hurt, though,' Neville said. 'And anyway I don't see how that saves anyone else any hurt. Draco still has to go home to his dad. And I still have to go home to my gran and to Potions and my parents would still be...' He got it out with a strangled inhale. 'Still be... so... it doesn't fix anything so you shouldn't, don't you see? So we'll plan.'

Impulsively Hermione hugged him. Neville blushed furiously, and even hotter when Cedric patted him proudly on the back, and Ron too. Neville's face was absolutely flaming when Harry presented his hand. They shook, and Neville matched the strength of Harry's grip, and then some.

'Right,' Harry said, coughing to release a bit of hoarse tightness. 'So. We plan.'

'Potter.'

Harry had more or less composed himself when he turned to face Snape. The Potions professor wore his customary black, but the rich browns and golden glow of the sconces of the library put a bit of colour in his sallow face for once, dark eyes snapping as he gave their table a very lengthy look-over. Hermione tried to casually cover their list with one of her textbooks, but she moved at the same time as Ron, who was rather clumsier at it, and the result was the inkpot tipping over and splashing everyone. Snape took care of it with a casual spell that flicked them all dry and stain-free.

'With me, Potter,' Snape said, as he tucked his wand away. 'Your co-conspirators can carry on without you, surely.'

Harry stood reluctantly. 'It's not... you know?'

'I most certainly do not know. Full sentences, Potter.'

'It's not, er, about the letter we sent?'

'No,' Snape said, 'it regards some other deeply private issue you should announce to the rest of Gryffindor House.'

Harry flushed. 'And a Hufflepuff,' he dared, and Snape stared him down.

'Come,' Snape sneered at last, and whirled about with an impressive swish of his robes. 'I'll return you in more or less the same condition when our business is concluded.'

Harry grabbed his rucksack and swept everything off the table into it. 'I'll catch you up,' he promised his friends, and hurried out of the library at Snape's heels, only to be ignored as if he were wearing his invisibility cloak. Snape moved at the same brisk clip as usual, evidently lost in his thoughts, so Harry followed mutely, telling himself not to court disaster. All the same, when he realised their direction would lead them inevitably to the infirmary, he couldn't stop himself blurting out, 'I don't want to.'

Snape came to an abrupt halt, and Harry swerved to avoid hitting him. Snape about-faced and crossed his arms over his chest. 'Oh?' he enquired.

'Only...' Only he couldn't explain, exactly, why, except that every time he'd been in the infirmary all year it had been awful. But that was a silly reason, so he tightened up his shoulders and went in ahead of Snape. Madam Pomfrey was awaiting him in her office, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup which she set aside the moment he appeared. She greeted him with a little hug, which was rather nice, given that she smelled like lavender and her chamomile tea. It didn't make him feel any better about being directed to a bed behind a screen and told to strip to his skivvies, but he went without complaint, dumping his bag on the floor and kicking off his scuffed trainers.

It was a more thorough exam than he'd ever had, and a lengthy one for sitting in a chilly room in just a thin cotton gown. Madam Pomfrey examined Harry head to toe and back up again, paying particular attention to things Harry couldn't see for himself, like the wrist he'd broken the night Sirius had knocked him down, and the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. She exchanged a long look with Snape after that one, but smiled brightly at Harry and told him nothing of her observations.

'Any headaches since- that night?' she asked Harry, with the sort of wizarding delicacy that mandated avoidance of any distressing topic, however circumlocutious a navigation that required.

'No,' Harry said. 'Not a one.'

Pomfrey did not seem to find this a relief, for all Harry was quite chuffed about it. 'It defies explanation,' she muttered, glaring at her quill which scratched across a lengthy roll of parchment clear across the room. 'A condition that severe does not simply vanish.'

'It defies medical explanation,' said Severus Snape. 'Not magical.'

'Magic was causing my headaches?' Harry asked, as Pomfrey bent his head this way and that and glowered at finding him possessed of a full range of motion. 'Like my mum's?'

'I think it is rather more insidious than that.' Snape had been pacing the outer edges of the infirmary with a restless energy, but returned now with clacking heels to loom over Harry's bedside. 'I believe you were subjected to a form of taboo.'

'Taboo?' Harry didn't know what that was, and didn't like to look ignorant with Snape, but Snape seemed to catch his hesitation and went the extraordinary length of explaining himself. Slowly, and with a heaping helping of condescension just to be clear Harry ought to have known it.

'A taboo,' Snape said, 'is a curse which places some condition on a specific word. During the war the Dark Lord placed a taboo on mention of his name, for instance. Anyone unwise enough to speak his name could expect a visit from Death Eaters.'

'Is _that_ why everyone calls him You-Know-Who?' Harry demanded, one lingering mystery finally enlightened. 'All this time I've thought everyone was just afraid of it.'

'They are,' Pomfrey shuddered behind him, as she extended one of Harry's arms its full length and examined his muscles.

'But everyone thought he was dead all this time, why keep not saying it?'

'Habit,' Snape said succinctly, 'aided by a pervading silliness which plagues the British press. Amongst many invented social ills which can laid at the _Prophet_ 's door, encouraging the ignorant in a conspiracy of cowardice has produced a decade of-'

Harry interrupted, squirming away from the tickling path of Pomfrey's fingers marking out each of his ribs. 'But Quirrell already knew where I was.'

Snape folded his arms over his chest to scowl. 'I did not say that was the sole use of a taboo, Potter. Based on my observations I'd guess that once Quirrell realised you knew enough to reveal his crimes to others, he cursed your attempts to communicate information about him.'

'But just his name? Why not the name Voldemort?' Harry yelped as Madam Pomfrey abruptly bent him flat over his knees, tracing his spine. 'Er, should I stop saying Voldemort? If it's tabooed?'

'On the contrary,' said a new voice, and Harry craned his head to peer up as Dumbledore joined them in the infirmary. 'I have long believed that, far from shying away from the name, it would be far better to speak it as often as possible, thus to confuse and overburden the receptor.' Dumbledore halted just a little too close, so that Harry could only see up to his knees, bent over as he was. 'Good evening, Mr Potter,' Dumbledore said.

'Good evening,' Harry replied, suddenly subdued, and let his cheek rest on his thigh. Madam Pomfrey gave him a gentle pat on his back.

'As to why Quirrell only tabooed his own name, and not that of Lord Voldemort, I would hazard he was, at the time, more fearful of exposure whilst he still had reason to remain in the school, near the Stone,' Dumbledore added after an awkward pause. 'Once he had, as he thought, retrieved the Stone, it served no further purpose; and, in any case, his death removed the taboo.'

'So I won't have headaches anymore?'

'Likely not,' Pomfrey replied, and seemed almost disappointed by it, though she let him up at last and pulled up his gown, overlapping the halves and placing a quilt about his shoulders. 'You're to come see me immediately if you experience any returning symptoms, Potter.'

For a moment of wild excitement Harry envisioned a life of never seeing the inside of the hospital wing again. With enviable timing, Pomfrey gave him just long enough to tingle with gleeful anticipation before dashing his hopes.

'Then again,' she added, a bit cheered herself, 'now we'll have the opportunity to pursue your magical allergy, I'll be able to monitor you much more closely.'

Harry wasn't quick enough to stifle his groan, and a faint twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes made him blush. 'That's not down to Quirrell too?' he begged.

'We won't know unless we pursue it with scientific rigour,' Snape corrected. 'To wit: I have drafted a schedule for you- three visits a week, staggered with your tutoring sessions, and, under threat of Oliver Wood's tragic demise from grief and stress, your Quidditch practices.'

That would handily account for every minute of free time Harry could expect to have from now til end of term. If all Snape wanted was to keep Harry out of trouble and under constant supervision, he'd just accomplished it. Harry scowled.

'I say, that's not Harry Potter, is it?' A head thrust itself past the screen, and Harry blinked up a tall fellow with wavy golden hair who flashed a blindingly white smile at him. 'Why, it is! Hullo there, young man, quite an honour, quite an honour!' Harry's hand was seized right out of Pomfrey's hold and pumped rigourously. 'For you, that is, meeting me before all the rest of your classmates! Ah, I envy you, Harry- I can call you Harry, can't I?- getting to meet me. I've never had the privilege. Ah- and you, sweet maiden? A privilege indeed to meet _you_.' The man bent over Madam Pomfrey's hand, kissing her knuckles as she tittered nervously. Harry nursed his mashed fingers with an uncertain glance about him, wondering if this were some sort of prank. Dumbledore was calm and collected as ever, but Snape looked like he'd just got a facefull of bubotuber pus, his long nose scrunched up in disgust.

'May I introduce,' Dumbledore said, 'our replacement for the Defence Against the Dark Arts class.'

'Gilderoy Lockhart, at your service!' declaimed the tall man, swirling his robes about him in a big swishy bow. He looked like he'd been nipping at Mr Lupin's wardrobe, dressed in robin's egg blue lined with eye-searing yellow sateen, with pink boots and a ludicrously long feather in his cap that stood upright above his head an extra nine inches when he bowed.

'Gilderoy has kindly agreed to take over the rest of the term,' the Headmaster added. 'I needn't tell you how lucky we are for a late-term supply instructor.'

'Lucky,' Snape said flatly.

'Now I'd remember a face like yours, dear man!' Lockhart didn't wait to be rejected, grabbing Snape's hand and shaking it firmly. 'Of course, you'll know me, by reputation and face alike- three time _Witch Weekly_ 's most winning smile award.' Lockhart posed to deliver said winning smile, gleaming teeth and gums displayed in a cocksure grin. Pomfrey flustered at Harry's back, dropping a tray. 'But it's my expertise you have need of now, not my winning attitude and fair figure. A shame I was out of the country when that villainous cretin attacked the unicorns in yon Forest- I've always had an excellent relationship with unicorns, very tragic news. We share a love of beauty in all forms. To think, if only I'd been here... but, c'est la vie. I'm here now! And ready to whip into glorious action should any dastardly Dark Wizard threaten foul play!' he shouted, brandishing his wand like a sword.

Snape made his sneeze face, eyes rolled up and stopped with extraordinary effort. Harry closed his hanging jaw with a click. Even Dumbledore's smile was a little braced. 'We'll face a bit of a staff shortage next year,' the Headmaster murmured. 'I was just informing Gilderoy the difficulty we've had for many years, finding a long-term fill for the DADA post. Alas, next year we will also lose Professor Kettleburn; he's elected to retire early, to better enjoy the company of his remaining limbs.' Dumbledore tilted his head at Harry, regarding him over the gold rims of his spectacles. 'I think, Mr Potter, you will find Professor Kettleburn's replacement very congenial to your situation. As will the Chief Auror.' With that cryptic statement, Dumbledore gathered Lockhart to him, and off they went, Lockhart launching a boasting story about the time a unicorn followed him through the whole Catalan countryside, having fallen in love at first sight.

'Merlin help us,' Snape muttered, shuddering.

Harry rather agreed. 'What did he mean about the Chief Auror, though?'

'Do you require any further examination, Poppy?' Snape asked Madam Pomfrey, rather than answering Harry.

'I have enough for the record,' she said, and patted Harry's shoulder. 'You can get dressed, love. But mind you come back tomorrow promptly after supper, please. And try to avoid potatoes, at least til we're through the first round of tests.'

That reminded Harry to feel gloomy over his loss of autonomy and probable death by potions poisoning as they tested him for his supposed magical allergy. 'Okay,' he said, and sorted his robe from the jumble of fabric where he'd tossed it in a pile. Snape turned his back as Harry dressed, but didn't leave, as Madam Pomfrey did. Instead, when the sound of her office door clicking shut indicated they were quite alone, Snape said, 'I wonder, Potter, if you have had any post from your guardian this week?'

'From Sirius?' Harry paused in doing up his tie. 'Should I have?'

'Lupin, then.'

Harry chose to ignore the sneer Snape made as he said Remus's name. 'Not him, either. Why?' But even as he questioned he realised he knew the answer. 'You think Scrimgeour would go straight to them. You wanted him to go to them first, didn't you?'

'Why should you imagine I wanted them involved? You could have gone to them with your little problem, Potter, if _you_ wanted them involved.'

Harry chose to ignore, as well, what Snape knew as well as Harry did, that Harry had gone to them, had been going to them before Snape got to him first. 'You wanted it to look like they'd helped me write my letter. Or an adult, at least. All those big words and long sentences. So Scrimgeour wouldn't believe I'd done it all on my own.'

'Passably observant, though it took you long enough to notice.' Snape picked up Pomfrey's magical quill, smoothing the edges of the feather between two fingertips. 'So you know nothing of what they've been doing about your situation?'

No, hence his mad worry. 'When I tell them about things that are bad they just sort of... go off and do things about it. They tell me about it when it's over. Mostly.'

'And of the Malfoys?'

'The Malfoys? What of them?'

'Has Draco told you anything?'

Draco had been awfully upset all week, but he wasn't one for sharing. 'I know Draco's stopped talking about his father every other word,' Harry said, finishing his knots and sliding his feet into his shoes. 'I reckon he's been told not to talk about What Happened, though, because he leaves whenever we start to.'

'And you're not the least curious why that is?' Snape questioned keenly. 'Why a boy on orders to be close to you suddenly finds it incumbent on his honour to absent himself from sensitive conversation?'

'Why-'

'Think, Potter,' Snape said harshly. 'You know Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. You know as well as I do that his claim to have been cursed with the Imperius to obey the Dark Lord on the night Quirrell invaded Hogwarts is a pleasant fiction. Yet he retains his positions on the Board of Governors and the Ministry, there is no mention in the papers of perfidy, and though he is certainly not above bribing the Chief Auror, there is no political upside for Scrimgeour to allow a guilty Death Eater to walk free when the Boy Who Lived can place him at the crime scene. Unless Scrimgeour has a use for him. The same and more can be said of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.'

'A use? What does that mean?'

'It means,' Snape hissed, stepping close to Harry and glowering down at him, 'that you would be wise to watch those who call themselves your friends, Potter. It may be difficult to wrap your battered brain around the concept, but a Diamond Soul won't save you from treachery.'

'Severus, you're still here?' Madam Pomfrey had emerged, and lit on her quill in Snape's hands. Snape adopted a neutral expression the instant he heard her approach, and handed over the quill as she reached for it. 'Oh, goodness, I'm growing batty in my old age,' Pomfrey sighed. 'I can't tell you how many of these things I lose, and I do like the dictaquills.'

'Perhaps Filius could set a locate charm for you,' Snape replied indifferently. Without glancing at all at Harry, he said, 'Go, Potter, unless you have some deep-set longing my company. Good night, Poppy.'

'Good night,' she said, a bit bemused, but that was nothing on Harry, who stared after Snape as he stalked out of the infirmary, shoulders level and back ramrod straight.

* * *

Hermione and Ron hunched over either of Harry's shoulders as he wrote. 'Really, Harry, your spelling is atrocious,' Hermione chided him.

Harry's spelling had hardly been aided by the ill-humoured attention of Mr Triscomb, who had taught reading and writing and had a grudge for Harry ever since the unfortunate instance in which Harry had wished his hair blue. Harry let Hermione's comment pass him by. He had chosen Muggle stationery to write to Mr Flamel, thinking he might enjoy a reminder of things beyond the Wizarding World, but even with a biro Harry's penmanship was hardly the stuff of legend. And it seemed like the harder he tried to properly form his Os and Es the more lopsided they got.

'"Dear Mr Flamel,"' Harry read aloud, though quietly, so his recitation could fall under the general din of late evening chatter in the Gryffindor common room. '"I haven't heard from you since the night Voldemort-"'

'I still think you should write "You-Know-Who",' said Ron.

'"You-Know-Who" sounds silly, and anyway you know what the Headmaster told Harry, that people shouldn't be afraid to say it,' Hermione dismissed him. 'And Dumbledore and Flamel are friends so they're likely to agree, aren't they?'

'You and I are friends and we barely agree on anything,' Ron muttered.

'You and me,' Hermione corrected absently.

'Hush,' said Harry, finishing off a sentence and tilting the paper upright so they could all see it. '"Dear Mr Flamel, I haven't heard from you since the night Voldemort attacked Hogwarts and I wondered if you were okay and how you are doing after being trapped in the Pensieve all night. I am very sorry that happened and apologise because it was my fault it happened at all, since I was the one who wanted to bring Quirrell back to the school. But also I wanted to ask if you aren't too angry with me, might I see you again? You see I've been thinking about the Philosopher's Stone and about what will happen to it now, and also what might happen to me after all of this. I don't know if you heard but there are these things called blood wards and Dumbledore thinks maybe that is what stopped Voldemort coming back before, except now they're really weak and I have to do something to fix them. But in the meanwhile I am worried what will happen with the Stone if Voldemort tries to come back again. If you don't want to see me, maybe you could just write me back to say what happened to it? I would very much appreciate it."'

'You really think he won't want to see you?' asked Hermione, falling back on the couch. 'You said he was so nice to you before.'

Harry didn't acknowledge the obvious- Flamel had been wonderfully nice, yes, but that was before Harry had got him attacked by a Dark Lord. 'Is that enough for the letter or should I try to write more?'

'That much took us two hours.' Ron flumped back as well, rubbing his grumbling stomach resentfully. Professor McGonagall had praised their ingenuity in getting the house elves to help them help Sirius, but had also made it crystalline clear they weren't to call on the house elves for anything unless there was danger involved. Consequently Ron had been complaining about a lack of proper snacks available when he wanted them, which was always.

'It's good enough,' Hermione judged. 'Now sign it, and we'll run it up to the Owlery before curfew.'

Harry penned his name, and folded the stationery in thirds to fit into the envelope. 'To Mr Nicolas Flamel,' he wrote. 'You're sure the owl will know how to find him even if we haven't got an address?'

'If he wants to be found.' Ron chewed his lip. 'So what's next if this doesn't work?'

'Well, if we can't get any information about the Stone, I think we should assume it's still out there and that Voldemort will want to get at it still.' Hermione frowned at the merry fire in the big hearth. 'I wish I knew more,' she burst out passionately, but her shoulders sagged a moment later. 'There could be hundreds of magical ways to make yourself immortal, if that's what you want. The Stone was just the first one we knew about. Harry... Harry, maybe you should ask Miss Tonks? Or Ron, you could ask your brother? I bet the Order of the Phoenix know all these things already.'

'You reckon I should?' Ron asked Harry uncertainly.

'I bet they know, it's just if they'll tell us anything or treat us like stupid kids.' Harry took off his glasses to rub his eyes. 'I really wish Sirius or Remus would write me back. They don't hide things for stupid reasons.'

'Aren't they in the Order, too?'

Come to it, Harry wasn't entirely sure they were, actually. They definitely knew about it- Remus had been the one to tell him, after all- but though it was clear some of the Order knew Remus, like Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt, it wasn't nearly as clear if he was counted one of them. 'My parents were. Sirius was their Secret Keeper, so I bet he was. But he's said before that Remus was away during the war, doing things no-one knew about.'

'For the Order, though?'

Rita Skeeter speculated freely in her unpublished book about how various people were connected to Dumbledore, but if she knew about the Order of the Phoenix, Harry had yet to read it. It was clever enough to realise Dumbledore seemed to have connexions outside the Wizengamot or the school, but in all the nasty things she'd written about Remus, none of it had been about the Order. If Rita Skeeter hadn't found it, it was a very well-kept secret indeed, and Harry would bet not even Tonks would let slip something she didn't think he ought to be asking about.

Gilderoy Lockhart's debut in Defence Against the Dark Arts the next morning was quite the spectacle. Harry had been much of the breakfast hour in the Owlery, trying to find an unoccupied general post owl who was in a mood to carry a letter when it wanted to be sleeping away the daylight hours. He'd had just enough time for a slice of toast and a hot pumpkin juice when the bell rang, and no time for the gossip about the new instructor. He rushed to get a spot at a desk, sliding into a chair near the front with Millie when she waved him in, just in time for the fireworks.

Literal fireworks, if magical at least. An explosion of multi-coloured sparks whirled and smoked all the more impressively for being sized far too large for the small space in which they went off. Whilst everyone gaped and cringed away- Seamus was whooping in delight, but he was sat safely four rows back, and didn't have to bat a flame out of his sleeve as Neville, sat beside Hermione in the front row, did- Lockhart had crept into place before his desk, and was lounging elegantly with his ankles crossed, his wand twirling between two well-manicured fingers. His robes were mandarin-collared, black silk with gold piping that exactly matched the shade of his wavy hair, and his tall boots were red dragonhide. He looked quite dashing, at least evidenced by the number of admiring ooohs that swept the first years.

Lockhart levelled a devastating smile at his class. 'Good morning, children. Introductions are, I assume, entirely unnecessary.'

'Who is he?' Theo whispered, confused.

'Gilderoy Lockhart,' Harry whispered back. Millie blinked at him- of course he never recognised anything Wizarding. It was nice to be in the know for once. 'I met him yesterday. He's... a bit different.'

'Didn't he write a bunch of books?' Millie said. 'I think my mum has some.'

'Now, I've heard you had a terrible incident here at Hogwarts,' Lockhart said, exaggerated sympathy drawing bright tears to his eyes. 'I'm sure you're aware your old professor met a bad end. Let's all bow our heads in a moment of silence, to remember our fallen comrade.'

Ron swivelled to give Harry a look of horror. Draco rolled his eyes and dropped his chin into his hands.

Lockhart lifted his wand to his lips like a flute, and it emitted a high-pitched note. 'I have prepared a song,' Lockhart added, and cleared his throat. 'Oh Danny Boy, the hills, the hills are call-all-ing...'

Harry could hardly believe his ears. Had Lockhart not read the papers? It was no secret Quirrell had done awful things, even if most people didn't know he'd been possessed by Voldemort. And that was a Muggle song, not one Lockhart had written himself. It was all so odd Harry couldn't even think what to feel about it. At least until Lockhart left his dais and came straight to Harry's desk, to put a heavy hand on Harry's shoulder, singing full-volume into Harry's face like a demented serenade punctuated by a great show of mourning over a man Lockhart hadn't ever met and Harry could hardly be expected to miss. Harry avoided the stares of his fellow students; several of the girls looked murderously jealous, and a few of the boys, as well. Draco sniggered something too quiet to hear to Crabbe, who guffawed.

Lockhart ended his solo with a trilling vibrato in deep basso, and ruffled Harry's hair enthusiastically, leaving his hand in it so long Harry couldn't crane his neck away and had to just sit there enduring, face red-hot in humiliation. Lockhart used the opportunity to get a good look at Harry's scar, too, he was pretty sure, then smooshed Harry's face into his robe with a final pat. He dabbed his eyes with a silk kerchief.

'Well, onto happier things,' he announced, and took an athletic spring back to the front of the class to grab up the chalk for the board. He sent it zigging off to draw, in elaborate script Harry struggled to make out even with his good glasses, a list of titles. 'Let's give you the opportunity of a lifetime- a chance to get to know me! We'll start with a show of hands, who's read any of my published works? Year With the Yeti, for instance, or Voyages With Vampires? Perhaps my Guide to Household Pests- that one's popular with the ladies. The true connoisseur will have read my biography, of course- Magical Me!'

Hermione's hand shot into the air, of course. A good third of the class matched her, however. Lockhart clucked his tongue in disappointment. 'Good job your Headmaster was wise enough to hire me on,' he told them all, shaking his head sadly. 'Why, imagine if more of you had been properly exposed to serious Defence techniques as outlined in my self-help guides for the youth of Britain? Due out in June, be sure to set your advanced order with Flourish and Blott's. Still, we'll make the most of the time we-'

'Excuse me, Professor Lockhart.'

It was Percy Weasley, carrying a small silver scrollcase and wearing the same self-important look Lockhart had. Lockhart opened it immediately, and turned very grave.

'I do hope it's not serious,' he told Percy, and beckoned. 'Harry, you're to go to the Headmaster's office- the Chief Auror is here to see you. Naughty boy, were you? A bit of cheek is one thing, but misdeeds will out. Hurry back! I'll be distributing assignments for the rest of term, don't want to miss a minute more than needs must.'

'Take notes for me?' Harry thought to ask, as he packed hurriedly. Millie, eyes narrowed in speculation, shrugged and agreed. Harry jogged out after Percy, trailing stares and whispers, shoulders hunched. By the end of class they'd all be convinced he'd been arrested and thrown in Azkaban. That would be a fine headline for the _Prophet_.

Harry's last encounter with Rufus Scrimgeour had not engendered any warmth for the man, but it had certainly left Harry with a healthy respect for Scrimgeour's powers. Snape had seemed awfully confident this was the proper way to handle things, but Harry was far less sure now he was seconds away from facing the consequences. He found himself holding his breath as he trailed behind Percy, dawdling to look out the window or at a portrait and pretending he didn't want to dig his heels into the stone and have a good panic about it all. But Percy only minded him to look sharp and stop lollygadding, so Harry dragged himself up the moving staircase into Dumbledore's office with a distinct case of loathing for the entire enterprise, and stared at his trainers so he wouldn't have to meet anyone's eyes. Not even a welcoming whistle from Fawkes gave him any comfort.

Scrimgeour looked a bit better rested than he had after Voldemort's attack on the school, his lion's mane of reddish hair tamed and his red robes freshly pressed, falling in strict lines to his polished boots. He stood slapping his gloves against his thigh, a tight look of concentration on his face. Snape was sat in one of the chairs before Dumbledore's desk, looking rather bored and examining a hangnail. Dumbledore put aside a roll of parchment when Harry scratched at the door, and gestured Harry in. He didn't look angry or disappointed, but the twinkle was notably absent from his eyes.

'Potter,' Scrimgeour greeted him. Then, with a low uncomfortable cough, he said, 'Eyes up, boy, I'm not here to eat you raw.'

Since when? Harry almost asked- after all, Scrimgeour hadn't been particularly kind with him for killing Quirrell. Then again, maybe this was worse. He was going to treat Harry like he was breakable now. Harry glared defiantly, determined not to let the man pity him. Snape didn't, and Harry much preferred it.

Scrimgeour regarded him with narrowed eyes, and nodded to himself as if something were confirmed. 'I had your letter, Mr Potter,' he said. 'Before we discuss it, I'd like to know who wrote it.'

Harry betrayed himself with a glance. Snape folded his arms over his chest with an impassive stare.

'I don't mind owning I'm a bit surprised.' Scrimgeour tossed his gloves onto Dumbledore's desk, and invited himself into the other chair. 'I knew it wasn't Lupin- he's too comfortable manoeuvring behind the Ministry's back, as he's proved quite handily this week. Then I thought Black, perhaps. Then again, I knew Black as a young Auror. He wasn't what I'd call a polished writer, and unless there's an education programme at Azkaban I don't know about, I don't see ten years with the Dementors lending themselves to rhetorical flair.' Scrimgeour regarding them each in turn, flicking a sidelong look at Dumbledore, collected and cool. He added then, 'I also think you wanted me to conclude Potter wasn't the author, even if he did hold the quill. May I say, Professor Snape, I find this an interesting path to independence. You would do better to merely hand in your resignation and take your leave.'

Snape lifted his chin a bit. It had a faint echo in it of Draco's most Slytherin sneer. 'If I have loving daydreams of quitting this miserable post, particularly after entertaining Gryffindors and their exploding cauldrons all afternoon, it has nothing to do with Potter and his unique history.'

'Hardly unique,' said Scrimgeour, 'unfortunately. Potter. To go any further, I'm obligated to inform you of your rights. Though I have taken the liberty of handling this myself, you would normally be assigned to a case worker, with all attendant bureaucratic trappings. If you prefer, that option remains open to you, and my feelings won't be hurt.'

'But people would know?' Harry asked tentatively.

'Not many,' Scrimgeour assured him. 'You're a minor child. Your identity would be protected under the law. The file might circulate between a few departments, might involve a few Aurors, and I wouldn't be able to assign those I might prefer to handle it with more sensitivity than the usual file- or assign those certain others might prefer.' Scrimgeour dared Dumbledore with a raised brow, and Dumbledore serenely ignored the dangling bait that was surely Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Then again, Harry might prefer them too; he knew them at least. On the third hand, the thought of Tonks looking at him with pity was unbearable. Harry shrugged awkwardly, and Scrimgeour went on. 'If I handle this personally, I can do nothing official for you, but I think you're not the sort of person to much mind unofficial business.'

Harry much preferred it, really. 'Yes, please, sir.'

'I want to be sure you understand me, Potter. I can't arrest your aunt and uncle. I can't even open an inquiry. All I can do is investigate, privately, and perhaps have a private word or two as I deem appropriate to handle the matter.'

'I do understand, sir,' Harry said, and he did. After all, he had all the official paperwork he needed, a proper adoption. 'I just want to never see them again.'

'Then I need you to tell me everything you can about what they did, so I can make that happen for you.'

Snape caught himself before the gleam of triumph broke through his frown, but he nodded solemnly to Harry. It was exactly what Snape had predicted. Scrimgeour wanted to make a deal with Harry Potter as much as everyone else did. Harry steeled himself with a deep breath.

'You have my thanks and appreciation,' he said, exactly as Snape had instructed, promising nothing but his gratitude, exactly as it should be, Snape said. And he bowed the way Snape had made him practise, inclining his shoulders and bending at mid-back, not the waist.

Scrimgeour looked a little taken aback, but though his brows contracted in a deep frown, he didn't protest. In fact, he laughed, barking it out suddenly, and shook his head. 'If you're wondering, Potter, I'd judge you have a future in politics.' He stood, and put out his hand. 'I'll be in touch, then.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Harry said, when Scrimgeour had gone.

Dumbledore smiled, though it didn't seem to warm his eyes. 'No, Harry, there are no apologies owed.'

He shuffled in place, wishing for once that Snape would make one of his cutting remarks, just to spare Harry the horrible tension. 'I just don't want... I don't think...'

'I understand entirely. You are a resourceful young man, Harry. I shouldn't underestimate you. Nor your chosen allies.' Dumbledore smiled again, and though it was tinted with resignation, it was forgiving, as well, and Harry relaxed a little to realise that. 'I have tried to make amends as I can. I would never wish us at cross-purposes, my boy. If I must be the one to bend, I do so willingly.'

Snape regarded the Headmaster with narrowed eyes. 'Willingly?' he repeated sceptically.

'Yes, Severus. I would do anything in my power to ensure your safety- both of you. You have reminded me that I cannot order the world to my wishes. Nor, indeed, should I try to.' Dumbledore put out his hand, and Harry stepped forward to take it. Dumbledore had a strong grip, despite his old age, and he squeezed Harry's hand. 'There- we are friends again. And, as my friend, you have my full support in whatever you choose to do. I know you will choose wisely. Your compassion and honour serve you well. But for now, back to class. Only a few short weeks til exams.'

Harry bobbed his head, nearly his whole body with his knees a wee bit wobbly. 'Thank you, sir.'

He was nearly to the door when Snape added, low-voiced and strained, but oddly sincere, 'Albus... thank you.'

'You should not underestimate yourself, my dear boy. Or what I would do for you, willingly, for the asking.'

Harry glanced over his shoulder as he stepped off onto the moving stairs. Snape sat with his head bowed, and Dumbledore at his side, hand on his shoulder.


	32. Moveable Feast

_In Which It Is Difficult To Follow One's Dream, And Far More Tragic Not To._

Gilderoy Lockhart was determined to make a friend of Harry. Rather, he was firmly convinced they were, in fact, already the best of friends. He had a habit of appearing in places he hadn't ought to be, like Harry's Flight class, showing off his custom-made broom and incorrectly correcting Harry's technique as they practised for their exam, or swooping in on the Gryffindor common room after hours to hand out signed photographs to any who wanted them and several who did not, latching his arm about Harry's shoulders like a rabid tentacula plant, which wouldn't be dislodged by anything less than deadly force. Harry endured.

Many of the Gryffindor girls were quite taken with Lockhart, cooing over his handsome grin and his attractive clothes and his suave flourishing courtesy, always bowing at ladies and kissing their hands and opening doors and holding chairs for them. Hermione in particular was all aflutter over this rare evidence of chivalry, ever since Lockhart had carried her tottering pile of books for her from the library. As no Gryffindor boy could claim to have volunteered for that daunting task ever, there was no convincing Hermione that Lockhart was merely insane. 'Unlike some,' Hermione would always hiss, 'he's not allergic to being polite!'

Even sensible girls like Millie were falling under Lockhart's spell. Her initial scepticism was replaced rather suddenly with full-force hero worship, a switch accompanied by a rather odd transformation. She seated herself beside Harry in Defence one day smelling strange. Harry sniffed the air, and at the desk ahead of them Draco was doing the same, turning about in his chair to stare wide-eyed at Millie. She affected not to notice, fussing with the placement of her parchment and quill and inkpot, so it was left to Ron to blurt out the obvious.

'Are you wearing perfume?' Ron demanded.

'Oh, that? Mum's always after me to use it.' Millie tossed her hair over one shoulder. Which drew Harry's attention to it, as she ran a finger through its length. Harry had not particularly noticed her hair before- he was vaguely aware it was brown, in the way he knew Ron's was ginger and Draco's was blonde and Hermione's was a sort of streaky combination of brown and black- but now Millie's hair tumbled in smooth ringlets from the twin bows of Slytherin silver perched above her ears. Harry blinked curiously at the girls in the class, realising that quite a few of them seemed to be different in a way he couldn't quite articulate. Parvati Patil seemed to be making an awful lot of motions with her hands, turning them this way and that to catch the light, and Harry finally espied the pink varnish on her nails. Pansy Parkinson was playing up small diamond earrings by tilting her head repeatedly. Lavender Brown was at her lip gloss again, and lucky for her it wasn't Potions or Snape would've snatched it right out of her grip, not stopping to compliment her on the shade as Lockhart was doing just now. Lockhart preened and coquetted his way to the front, though not before stopping at Harry's aisle to pout at the boys in disappointment.

'You might benefit from a glimpse of my Witch Weekly interview, just out this past weekend's issue, on grooming tips for the up-and-coming student,' Lockhart whispered very loudly, flicking a hand at Harry's usual bush of messy hair. 'I can recommend a very handy pomade- Lockhart's Lucious Locks, of course! Tames even the gnarliest of beasts, and, if you don't mind my saying, that beast atop your head looks ready to swallow you whole, eh, Harry? A- _ha_!' he laughed, and bounded up to the dais in front of class to begin their lesson.

Once he had started noticing the affect Lockhart was having on Hogwarts, Harry found evidence of it everywhere. At Quidditch practise, Katie Bell kept rolling down her protective stockings to show her long pale legs, and Fred nearly crashed into the Keeper's pole ogling her. Angelina had done something to her hair, too, and was wearing it long instead of in the practical braid she usually did, and there was a bit of colour on her eyelids that made the almond shape of her eyes pop. Meal-times, generally reserved for eating and gossiping and occasionally a bit of last-minute homework, suddenly became a gender-segregated salon, the girls all loaded up on one end of the House tables with brushes and combs and ribbons and compact mirrors and a dizzying array of new scents like roses and apples and honeysuckle and cherry blossom, vanilla and gardenia and something Harry thought for sure was caramel corn- the girl wearing that, a Ravenclaw named Cho Chang who was on their Quidditch team, seemed to be lingering pointedly behind Oliver Wood's seat at the Gryffindor table, only to slink away disappointed when Oliver barely let up his animated conversation with Percy about the newly recruited Seeker for Puddlemere United long enough to acknowledge her. Oliver was unusual amongst the boys of Hogwarts, however: if you weren't crammed up tight with your mates whispering about the girls, you were sat with your mates shaking your head over how crazy it all was.

Ron and Harry and Neville were in the latter crowd, having already lost Seamus and Dean to the former. Ron complained- repeatedly- about girls always having to ruin things by changing them- Hermione snapped at him for this and then they were having a real proper row, conducted wordlessly across the Great Hall with Ron steaming at Harry's side and Hermione glowing under the attention of a crowd of fifth years who ooohed and ahhhed over Hermione's collection of Muggle teen mags. That Hermione had been shoving those into a box all year with an eyeroll over her mother's unending attempts to drag her kicking and screaming out of her schoolbooks and into the mall, as Hermione told it, went unremarked now. Harry didn't so much mind any of it, though. If anything, it was rather a nice change from all the doom and gloom that had plagued his first year at Hogwarts. Being a bit silly was harmless in the scheme of things.

But Harry was mostly distracted from the phenomenon sweeping Hogwarts by the arrival of three letters. They came with the morning owls, all carried by separate birds, one of which was Errol, who sprawled with heaving gasps across Harry's plate of toast and eggs. Percy scraped jam out of his hair and turned about to frown at them.

'Is that my owl?' he demanded.

'Er...' Harry extricated his letter and shooed Errol up the table toward his proper owner. Errol hopped and tripped his way up to Percy, who glowered at Ron. Ron cleared his throat, and abandoned the table, running for the door.

The other owls were a pale yellow long-eared owl and a rather frighteningly large eagle owl with ghoulish staring gold eyes. The eagle owl made a jab at Harry for not paying him proper attention, and Harry earned a gouge in his wrist from its sharp beak as he untied the jesses from the owl's scaly leg. Neville gingerly offered it payment in black pudding, and the owl snatched it viciously, scattering crumbs in all directions as it ravaged its prey. Harry slid sideways to avoid the splatter, and got the long-eared owl to give up its letter for the bribe of a sausage. Clutching all his post, Harry made a dash for the exit as well. He heard footsteps pounding after him, but didn't slow til he was out the main doors and dashing across grass toward the standing stones. He dug into the little divet that formed a comfortable seat with his back pressed to the stone, and sorted his letters. A moment later, Neville caught him up, panting, and sank onto the grass beside him. The surprise arrival was Draco, who came a moment later, glaring at them and sulking with his arms crossed even as he bumped shoulders with Harry, peering at the letters.

'They're from Sirius, and Nicolas Flamel, and...'

'My dad,' Draco said.

'Yeah.' Harry rubbed his thumb down the side of the final letter, a fine envelope of white vellum with flowing cursive script addressing it to Harry. He canted his head at Draco. 'Why do you smell like lilies?'

Draco flushed. 'Are you going to open it?' he asked, evading Harry's eyes.

Competing priorities tugged at Harry. But in the end he opened Lucius Malfoy's first, since Draco had asked, and he supposed it was the greater mystery of the three. He slit the seal and removed the card inside. It was an invitation of sorts, a vignette of vines encircling a calligraphic paragraph of delicately inked lines.

It read:

 _Master Harry,_

 _Though I have no right to ask it of you, it is my greatest wish you will flatter me with a call at some time convenient to you. You are always welcome in Malfoy Manor. If courtesy did not compel it, I believe the terms of life debt would. I owed you more than I gave you, Master Harry, in quitting the debt of saving my son's life. I took advantage of your innocence and youth and most humbly beg your forgiveness. Let Malfoy Manor be your sanctuary should you ever have need of it- this I offer for the length of your life._

 _I do not deny there would be political advantage to me and to the House of Malfoy in a public show of your forgiveness for my role on a night with which we are both all too familiar. But I ask not for myself, not for my name. I ask for my son. Keep him safe at your side, Master Harry. He is worth more to me than all the power in the world._

 _With gratitude,_

 _LM_

Harry glanced up at Draco, who was watching him, mouth a thin tight line that would have been anxiety in anyone else. Harry offered the card.

'I think really you should keep it,' he said. 'It might be important for you to know.'

Draco's eyes didn't drop to the card, even as Harry pressed it on him. He stared at Harry, as if he could read Harry's mind if he only wished hard enough. Whatever he found there, he didn't reply, and, at last, reluctantly read his father's note. He swallowed, hard, his fingers clenching tight a moment before he caught himself.

'What are the other ones?' Neville asked.

Harry opened Nicolas Flamel's next, knowing that Neville would be keenest on that. Harry was keen on it himself. The seal was curious, a snake curled in a figure of eight, eating its own tail- alike, Harry remembered, but not quite the same as the Death Eater tattoo Remus had warned him of, and no skull. He popped it from the parchment with his thumbnail and opened the envelope. Inside was Muggle paper, the same as what Harry had written his letter on, though rather finer than his simple lined notebook paper had been. Harry unfolded it, shaking out the sharp trifold, and smoothed it across his knee.

It read:

 _My dearest Master Harry,_

 _Please forgive my silence these past weeks. I had no wish to cause you any distress- indeed, I believed my presence might, as such, increase your distress, rather than the reverse. Your generosity of spirit is such I cannot believe I made such a simple-minded mistake. I shall be at Hogwarts to attend certain affairs on the 17th of June. I would make every effort to be there sooner to alleviate your concerns, but I am afraid circumstances will keep me abroad another month before travel will be possible. I am, you see, returned at present to France, to spend time with my wife, the lovely Perenelle of whom I told you. Ours can be a lonely household- we are childless, you see, though at times over the years it has been our pleasure and privilege to entertain the affections of young persons such as yourself, whose adventures sustain our long years with merriment and delight. I have already told Perenelle of your cleverness, in overcoming tremendous danger to yourself and your beloved friends. Believe me when I tell you I spoke of you proudly, dear boy._

 _But let me not delay in easing your mind as regards my Stone. I understand from your Professor Snape that you were able to recover the Stone from Voldemort, and hid it until such time as it could be safely released. Professor Snape returned me the Stone, and I moved swiftly to remove it from Britain- so swiftly, in fact, I had no opportunity to see you before you were gone from Hogwarts. The Stone is safe; which is to say the Stone has been placed beyond the reach of men- even of boys possessing a Diamond Soul. As I told you, Master Harry, the greatest weapon is to remove weapons from the hands of those who would use them. It has never been a desire of mine to go to war. I am a Philosopher, not a warrior, but having found myself in the midst of war once again I stand ready and able to do my part. Let me be your shield, Master Harry, so that you need not be a sword._

 _I do hope I shall see you in June. Til then, I remain, most enthusiastically,_

 _Yours._

 _NF_

Neville touched Harry's knee. Draco's hand was on his arm, his thumb resting on Harry's wrist just beneath the cuff of his sleeve. 'Read the last one,' Neville said, and Harry blinked himself back to life, obeying with a shaky grip. There was no seal on the letter from Sirius, which, though done in proper parchment, appeared to be ballpoint pen, as Harry was wont to use, and Remus also. It lent a jaunty spike to Sirius's usual slanted hand, and his margins sloped alarmingly.

 _Dear Harry,_ it began.

 _Sorry for not writing earlier. Remus was at me to do it, but we had quite a lot of disagreement on what we'd tell you, not to mention the disagreement about what we'd do that would need telling._

 _The short of it: practise hard for the Ravenclaw match. It'll be my first time seeing you proper, from the stands as an invited guest. And a human. The long of it- well, that'll hold til we see each other face to face._

 _All my best,_

 _Padfoot_

There was a post-script of sorts from Remus, in his familiar precise writing:

 _Harry, forgive us if we worried you, as I'm sure you have been, and most certainly the delay encouraged you to take matters into your own hands- I fear what knots you've entangled yourself in. I hope you will write me back immediately to assure me you've been perfectly content to mind your studies and leave problems to your elders, but hope is for people who've never met adolescent boys. So I'll save my hope for other matters, and tell you what little I can just now, which is that things are in motion- political things, in the main, things that have less to do with you than you might fear, but they are still in motion, unsettled. I hope them to be quite decidedly settled by the time we see you for your game._

 _I can't wait to see you fly, Harry. Your father and mum would be so proud._

 _RJL_

'Do you think you should show Snape?' Draco wondered.

'I'm sure Snape would say I ought to.' Harry stacked Nicolas Flamel's letter over Remus's, folding them over each other. 'Not... not yet.'

He'd thought Draco might fight that. But, if anything, Draco seemed contented with his answer. 'Good,' Draco murmured, and settled against Harry's shoulder with nothing more to contribute. Neville seemed on the verge of saying something, but in the end kept his silence, as well. He sat back against the standing stone, let out a deep sigh, and stared off at the morning sun.

* * *

'Ready?' Oliver goaded.

Everyone placed their hand atop his, and Oliver's fist pounded down. 'Ready!' they chorused. Madam Hooch blew her whistle, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team launched, rising in perfect tandem on their brooms to take a pass the long way round the oval of the pitch. Harry could not contain himself grinning and waving madly as they passed the teachers' box, where Sirius and Remus stood cheering him on. They even had a banner in Gryffindor colours, and Remus hoised it high as Sirius whooped loudly enough even to be heard over the din.

It was without a doubt the best game Harry had ever played. Every manoeuvre came to him as smoothly as magic, as if the Quaffle knew his hand and came to it whenever summoned, and it flew unerringly through the goalposts every time. He was only ever vaguely aware of the Ravenclaw players, so cocooned was he by Fred and George Beating away all attacks and carving him an avenue toward the Ravenclaw keeper whenever he had possession of the ball. Katie and Angelina and he were a tightly focussed team, operating in wordless concert to pass, feint, dodge, and score. The Ravenclaws put up a good fight, methodical in executing complex plays that had felled Hufflepuff and Slytherin earlier in the year, but it was an academic approach, a passionless chess game just as Oliver had predicted, and Gryffindor's passion carried the day. The five hour match felt like five minutes to Harry. Even the short break they took mid-game to drink and strategise passed as a mere moment.

Mo Milai caught the Snitch at the crest of a battle against Cho Chang that drove them spiralling through the air like sparrows in heat. Harry was not the only player who stopped dead in the air to watch them- it was beautiful, it was otherworldly, the tight curl of two evenly matched Seekers rolling through the air, a deadly missle headed for the sun. But Mo was just the slightest bit longer in the arms, and when he seized the Snitch he broke from Chang, arching back in a wide bell curve that turned into a triumphant circle about the pitch, greeted with the ecstatic roars and anguished moans of the Ravenclaws. Terry Boot looked fit to collapse, almost weeping with defeat. But when the teams gathered to shake hands, there were only victors and those who had fought well and bravely. Chang's downcast eyes rose slightly when Harry admitted his sincere admiration. 'You were brilliant,' he said fervently. 'I've never seen anything like it. Brilliant.'

A small smile pulled at the sad downturn of her mouth. 'Thanks, Potter.'

'Harry,' he corrected firmly.

'Cho, then.' She shook his hand, and moved off down the queue with her shoulders level.

Then the students came rushing onto the field, and the celebrating began.

In all the fuss it was some time before Harry recalled Sirius and Remus were waiting on him. He rushed through a shower and a change and hurtled out of the lockers back toward the pitch. The adults milled about admist the stream of students leaving; McGonagall was talking to Remus, and Gilderoy Lockhart had seized Sirius quite literally by both arms and was animatedly dialouging into Sirius's pained grimace. Harry's arrival only shifted Lockhart's attetion, and Harry was rattled to the bone by Lockhart shaking his hand so vigorously.

'Capital, Harry, really capital,' Lockhart said. 'Hero of the game, you were!'

'Not really,' Harry said, uncomfortable at this. He had scored more than the other Gryffindor Chasers, true, but it was Oliver's strategy for his Nimbus, and he depended on the rest of the team to make it possible, and Mo Milai's catching of the Snitch would surely become Hogwarts legend.

'So modest!' Lockhart exclaimed. He leant in close to Harry and stage-whispered, 'The modesty is a good look, my friend, but don't overplay it.'

'Er,' Harry said, looking for a way to extricate his fingers from Lockhart's hold.

'Sirius Black,' said a pleasantly poisonous voice, and Harry bent his head around Lockhart's tissue lamé robe to see Severus Snape descending the stairs onto the sand.

'Potter, actually,' Sirius said, a new fire lighting up his eyes. 'Same old Snape, though, I see.'

Snape looked different, actually, though Harry couldn't put his finger on it immediately. Younger, somehow, though he had the same black hair and sour curl to his lips, the same rigid posture-

'You're wearing green,' Harry said, surprised.

Snape broke his staring contest with Sirius to glance down at Harry. 'I am,' he said, sweeping the hem of his long robe so that it brushed an arc in the sand. 'And?'

'Green isn't black.'

'How astute,' Snape said drily. 'Truly, the finest instruction of Hogwarts has not been lost on you.'

'Severus,' Remus said, joining them. His tone was polite, perhaps a little seeking. Snape angled his eyes away, his lips pressing thin.

'Lupin,' he replied, distantly, but not so grudgingly as Harry had expected.

A hand settled on Harry's shoulder. Remus tugged him a step nearer, Harry going willingly to stand with him. Snape watched keenly.

'Thank you,' Remus said, and it had a weighty feel to it, burdened with secrets. But Snape only inclined his head, and, with nothing else, stalked off.

'Not familiar, my good fellow, not familiar at all,' Lockhart interrupted, brushing a hand through his golden waves and smiling fetchingly.

'No,' Remus agreed amiably, and gestured Sirius and Harry to follow him away. Harry trotted off at their heels, grinning as Lockhart spluttered his indignation.

As soon as they passed under the pitch's arched gateway, Sirius grabbed Harry up in a bear hug, swinging him off his feat. 'Amazing!' he crowed. 'Harry, you were a bloody bird up there, your father never flew half so well!'

'Really?'

'Really! You're a natural, Harry, you're a gift to Quidditch!'

'You're a staaaaaar,' Remus added in sing-song, and they all laughed.

Usually the students whose parents came for sports days had an hour or two to walk their parents on tours, or consult with their Heads of House about progress on academics, but Remus asked Harry to take a walk by the Lake instead, and it was a fine evening, a haze of pink and orange twilight lighting their way. The squid seemed to want to celebrate as well, tentacles making lazy waves above the water's surface as they strolled.

'Well,' Sirius said, breaking a calm silence that had fallen between them. 'Who's first, eh?' He ruffled Harry's hair.

So Harry told his side of things. Dumbledore telling him about the blood wards. Telling him he must go back to the Dursleys, for everyone. About Hermione's list, and Neville and Cedric and Ron and Draco uniting with him. About writing the letter that he hadn't sent, and Snape reading it, and Snape making him write another letter to the Chief Auror instead. How Scrimgeour had come to Hogwarts at last, to make a deal.

How Dumbledore had compromised, and bent.

'Did he,' said Remus, staring off at the mountains. 'Maybe he's changed after all.'

'He left me there,' said Sirius harshly. Remus blinked, and sighed. He took Sirius's hand in his.

'Left you there?' Harry asked.

'Azkaban. Dumbledore is the Chief Warlock. He could have ordered me a trial. He could have believed me. He could have answered any of my letters.'

'Sirius.'

'No,' Sirius said flatly, brushing off Remus's soft entreaty. 'I'm not blaming you. I'm not blaming anyone, not even Dumbledore. I'm just saying- once Dumbledore sets his mind at something, he doesn't change it.'

Remus sighed. 'Well. Perhaps I'll go next then. I've resigned at Crowhill.'

That set Harry rather aback. In all truth, he hadn't much thought of Crowhill lately- seven years there had faded from memory under the happy assault of the wonders of the Wizarding World. 'Oh,' he said.

Remus favoured him with a little smile. 'Yes, well. As you might imagine, it's been an eventful year, and I've been somewhat spotty in my attendance at teaching. But Crowhill was my home for some time, and I had supposed I would remain there until your situation was, well, secure. I'm not sad, precisely, to leave it, though I think it might be wise for you to maintain some ties to the Muggle world. But...'

They reached the large tree where students often picnicked or met for revision when the weather was fine. Harry gestured, and his guardians accepted his mute invitation, taking seats on the cool grass beneath the long limbs of the ancient oak. Sirius might have been in human form, but he sprawled, dog-like, to lay his head in Remus's lap, stretching out one hand to rest paw-like on Harry's ankle. With a chuckle, Harry gave Sirius a good scratch on the belly, and Sirius yipped his pleasure, wriggling.

'What remains unsaid in all this,' Remus murmured, tracing constellations on the stars tattooed on Sirius's hand, 'is that living so long amongst Muggles made for certain difficulties for me. It was necessary for me to- conceal signs of magic. I didn't want anyone to guess anything odd about you, nor anything odd about me, and Muggles are more sensitive to that than you might think. Given enough time they can invent their own excuses for even the oddest phenomena- little green men, for instance.'

'Wait, Muggles invented aliens to explain away magic?' Harry asked incredulously.

'Your Professor Burbage wrote a very good book about it, actually. She's theorised that the MaCUSA- that's Magical Congress of the United States of America, their version of our Ministry of Magic- inadvertantly planted the idea with house elves. They're native to the North American continent, you know. You'll cover the Slave Trade in Muggle Studies next year.'

'Moony,' said Sirius, reaching up to chuck Remus under the chin.

'Yes, well. It's pertinent, in a way.' Remus leant back against the trunk of the old tree. 'Those difficulties I was speaking of, well, they amount to a charge of Muggle Baiting. That's illegally using magic against Muggles who have no means of defending themselves. I am guilty of this. I can't and haven't denied it. There was more than enough evidence at Crowhill when the Aurors went looking for it.'

'Mr Thompkins,' Harry guessed.

'Noticed that, did you?'

'He stopped shouting at me all the time. Everyone, actually. I thought you must've put the fear of God into him.'

'Personally I don't put much stock in fear as a means of controlling people.' Remus smiled tiredly. 'I'd much rather appeal to their better nature; or their personal interests, whichever's stronger. But a man who likes to thrash little children deserves what he gets, and I don't apologise for what I did to Richard Thompkins, not even under threat of Azkaban.'

'Azkaban?' Harry repeated, alarmed.

Remus shrugged one-shouldered. 'It wouldn't have been a ten-year sentence, but I am guilty. That, and my decision to throw over the Aurors in favour of Sirius made Scrimgeour my enemy, and he's a determined man. He would have brought me up on any and every charge he could. Sirius was proved innocent under Veritaserum, and Scrimgeour saw the advantage in releasing him before trial and gaining an advantage over Fudge and Dumbledore both, but there's more than enough proof against me to keep me in Sirius's place. Unless we could bargain.'

'Everyone wants a deal,' Harry said, falling back on his elbows to kick at a clod of dirt.

'Not everyone,' Remus told him gently. 'Don't become a cynic, Harry, you have me for that. It's your misfortune to be caught up in our politics, and that's all it is. Most of it will come to nothing. That's what happens when opponents are evenly matched.'

'You against Scrimgeour?'

'I'm no-one to Scrimgeour, even for my connection to you. Even you are nothing to Scrimgeour, except for the advantage you can bring him. Scrimgeour wants to be Minister of Magic, Harry. The man who stands most in his way is Albus Dumbledore. That's who all this is for, all this dancing about.'

'Dumbledore? I heard he didn't want to be Minister, that he's turned it down.'

'But he's popular,' Sirius said. He pushed at Remus's knee to get a glimpse of Harry. 'Everyone's popular when they're not Minister, it's becoming Minister ruins your career. Every Minister since 1945 has lived in fear Dumbledore would snatch the post out from under them.'

'Scrimgeour's far and away more clever than Cornelius Fudge, of course,' Remus added. 'He thinks- rightly, I also believe- that the return of Voldemort would tempt Dumbledore to finally step up. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot is a powerful station, but it's power over the law, power of the judiciary- it's the long game, and deeply bound by tradition for that matter. The Minister has direct power over the magical community of Britain, even the power to ignore the Wizengamot if he can survive the poison pen of the press.' He paused, as if considering his words, threading Sirius's hair through his fingers. 'All this is my worry, not yours, but I suppose I'm trying to justify myself to you. You see... you see, Harry, all this is solely to say that I don't have much to bargain with. I used all I had on the entail, and you're the one who got the Veritaserum to Sirius and ensured the right people heard his statement. I have no favours to call in, I'm not owed any by powerful people, I have no information to trade...'

'But Scrimgeour let you go.'

'Yes.'

Harry gnawed his lip, thinking it through for himself. Thinking of the clues, thinking of the signs, thinking of the things let slip in his presence lately. He thought he had the picture of it.

'You're going to be the new teacher next term,' he said.

Remus nodded shallowly. 'I'll be Scrimgeour's eyes and ears at the school. On Dumbledore's staff.'

'Dumbledore knows,' Harry warned him softly.

'Yes. I told him myself.' To Harry's surprise, Remus shook his head. 'I owe Albus that much. And I think Dumbledore rather expected Scrimgeour to try and get someone near him. It's his preferred tactic, after all.'

'You mean Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt.'

'I told you he was clever, Padfoot.'

'I didn't need convincing.'

'I've lived too much of my life playing double agent,' said Remus, 'playing both sides against the other seeking any tiny advantage. The only thing that makes it palatable now is that it keeps me near you, that it keeps Sirius safe, keeps you free. I'll tell Scrimgeour all he wants to know about Dumbledore, and Dumbledore will tell me what he wants Scrimgeour to hear, and we shall all go about our business on tip-toes, I suppose, trying to be the best selves we can be for you.'

'What's Moony's trying to say, my lad,' Sirius added gently, 'is we'll stop at nothing. And you should let us play our parts without sticking your nose in so deep it gets nipped in the doing.'

'What part'll you be playing, then?'

'The most important part of all. Me.'

'You?'

'Here we go,' Remus sighed.

'Hush. All right, no theatre. I do mean me, though. The Blacks had a seat in the Wizengamot, and even adopting the Potter name wouldn't stop me taking it, now my father's dead. The Potters had a seat, too. I'll sit both until you're of age. That's two votes, two voices.' Sirius waggled his eyebrows. 'Not the first Black to hear two voices, am I. But there's going to be a lot of noise about the trial. Press. Interviews, articles. Speeches. I've never given a proper speech before. Moony here reckons I'll be good at it.'

'Not the first Black to love the sound of his own voice. Nor Potter.'

'This is what we were meant to do, Harry,' Sirius said, falling into a solemn mein now. 'What we'd've been if there hadn't been a war. I'd be Lord Black. Remus'd be a teacher here, it's what he always wanted. And there's a Potter winning Quidditch, and who knows? Maybe you'll find yourself a redhead next year.'

'Sirius,' Harry blushed. 'I'm only eleven.'

'You're a rising star, is what you are. You'll have to get those Weasley twins to beat the girls away for you.'

'Remus? Sirius? It's... it's over, isn't it? Until Voldemort comes back. If he comes back.'

A bit of breeze kicked up, rippling the surface of the Lake and bringing the clean scent of the mountains. Harry took in a deep breath of it.

'Not quite over,' Remus said, but he was smiling when Harry looked round to him. 'There's still the match with Slytherin.'

'And then home for the summer,' Sirius said. 'It's no good having adventures without you.'

* * *

Exams were staggered so as to give time for revision ahead of each. Hermione, for all her talk of planning for grim eventualities, threw over the Knights in a fury of activity. She was hardly to be seen except for the top of her head- the rest of her was buried in a mountain of books. Neville was quite as anxious as she was, convinced he would fail at everything, though his marks were quite good. Cedric tried to spend some time with them, but his exams were on a different schedule and much harder, besides, so they didn't see much of him aside from a friendly wave whenever they passed in the corridors or spied each other at meals. Ron was harried relentlessly by Percy, who didn't like Ron's argument that they wouldn't force him to repeat the year even if he did fail every subject; Percy was positively scandalised at the mere threat, bemoaning the shame to their ancestors if Ron flubbed so much as Flight.

For his part, Harry was relatively sure he'd do well at the academics as well as the practicals. For Flight, he'd read both his text and the book Draco had given him for Christmas, which had a good chapter on care and cleaning of brooms, as well as some good theory on maintaining speed and level altitude. In Charms, Harry was something of a natural, and anyway Flitwick had given them a list of all the spells they'd need to cast and answer questions about in oral examination. Transfiguration would be trickier; Harry understood the theory, but his spell casting still went awry at times, the effect stronger or wonkier than he'd intended, and he knew McGonagall would be after him about technique. He feared Potions like no other- Snape's good mood took a noticeable plunge once exams started, and a fifth year Hufflepuff exploded a cauldron in the very first test administered. Snape was back in black the next day, glowering at everyone, especially the House of Badgers, and it was said he spent every exam period slithering up and down the aisles between tables, peering into cauldrons ready to castigate any idiot who dropped the wrong ingredient into the brew. Neville looked faint at the very thought of Potions, Ron assured of his failure, and for his part Harry gloomily predicted a Troll would grace his final potion.

Yet it wasn't Potions that sent his good marks to the rubbish bin. Defence Against the Dark Arts was one of Harry's best subjects, and even under Quirrell he'd looked forward to class. However, with Lockhart at the helm, the class had turned into a joke of supremely poor taste. Lockhart had yet to teach them any real spells, and spent most of their sessions regaling them with tales of his many adventures, not preparing them for the exam. 'Oh, but it's only non-traditional,' Hermione assured him when he pointed this out. 'It's very Socratic, actually!'

'So-what?'

'Socrates, he was a philosopher-'

'Honestly, Hermione, I've had enough of Philosophers,' Harry said, and after a startled blink she laughed.

It was a relief, then, to get to the Slytherin match, a much-needed release of tensions. It was the match that would determine the House Cup: Gryffindor's win over Ravenclaw had put them in second place, and the Slytherins were as anxious to maintain their place in first as the Gryffindors were to usurp them. Oliver faced down the match as if it were the most important exam of all, and failure would lead to death by dishonour. Percy trailed after Oliver as much as Ron, chiding him to eat, to sleep, to _please stop talking about that bloody game for five minutes!_ Oliver developed a habit of jumping out of odd shadows to seize his players by the robe and frantically deliver a sermon to remind them of the importance of the match, as if there were any chance of forgetting. He even surprised Harry in the bath, popping in on his shower cubicle and rhapsodising about an imported French manoeuvre he'd read about that he wanted Harry to try as Harry grabbed for his towel and dropped his glasses into the drain trying to fumble them on. 'Oh no, not the glasses,' Oliver moaned, 'I'm getting you goggles, Potter-'

'Oliver, _get out_ ,' Harry hissed, and didn't relax til Percy dragged Oliver back to the dorm, swearing he'd bar the door if necessary.

Draco was no swot, but he minded his marks and came out tops in his House's batch of first years, something he declaimed with snotty pride to anyone who would listen. He even took top marks over Harry in flight, acing not just the written exam but the practical and edging Harry out by a single point, granted for, Madam Hooch said, excellent control of his broom. Draco lorded it over Harry all afternoon, til even other Slytherins tired of the novelty and Draco was forced to carry on his gloating at the Gryffindor table when they booted him from his own.

'Should've partnered with me, Longbottom,' Draco said pompously. 'No offence meant, Harry, but you could hardly expect to surpass a Pureblood who's been flying since he was five.'

'Neville's a Pureblood who's been flying since he was five,' Harry pointed out.

'Me?' Neville shuddered. 'I don't think the school brooms like me all that much.'

'I don't think they do either,' Draco muttered. At a normal tone, he added, 'Why hasn't Lady Longbottom got you a broom? Surely your father had one she could shove at you.'

'I'm no good at it,' Neville replied mournfully. 'I fall, don't I.'

'Fly with me,' Harry said. 'I'll keep you upright. It's fun, you'll see.'

'You should get Ron for something like that.'

There was no time, anyway, to finish the argument or to make it onto the field with their brooms. The bell was chiming. Neville scurried off with an apologetic look, clearly glad to be quit of any chance of being persuaded abroomback now he no longer had to because of marks. Draco rolled his eyes at this, but said only, 'Let Diggory tutor him next year. You've got enough to do.'

'I haven't, now, not really.'

'I've bet Marcus Flint four galleons on Slytherin winning by sixty points at least. Easy money, if you're that complacent.'

'Well, next year when you're on the team proper you can bet all you like, I'll still take that money off your hands.'

'Watch out, Potter. One would think your overconfidence is too audacious.'

'Someone thinks he's awfully clever, using all those big words.' Harry jabbed Draco in the ribs, and Draco batted him away. 'What'll you give me if I win?'

'You'll have to wait and see, won't you.'

The Gryffindor-Slytherin match took place on a Friday, and lasted seven hours at no points to either side for nearly the entirety of it. Harry had never seen Oliver so focussed and determined, refusing breaks for anything but water and toilets, and then only the bare minimum required by the rules of the game. Terrence Higgins and Mo Milai, the Seekers, were both carefully hovering near the Snitch, which flitted in and out of play every once in a while, but Mo's aim was to keep the Snitch from being caught as long as possible, not to catch it whenever he could- Gryffindor needed points, not just a win. Harry was exhausted, battling Slytherin's Beaters who were far more brutal in their use of Bludgers than the Ravenclaws had been, relying on a strong defence of the Keeper's goals to keep even Harry on his Nimbus from breaking their ranks. The weather, which had been fair when they started, turned to drizzle, then a driving rain, and by nightfall they were playing in a torrential downpour, impenetrable even by the light of magical torches burning their brightest. But there was no calling it a halt, and so they played on, taking ever fewer passes as they tried to reserve their strength as long as possible. The students in the stands began to disperse, some for bed, some for more comfortable seats under the awnings.

The Slytherins called a break, and the Gryffindors swooped to the sand. Harry's were not the only legs to buckle as he landed. He sat propped up from either side by Fred and George, sipping at hot pumpkin juice from a canteen and trying to force himself to merely nibble at a flapjack, rather than swallowing it whole to ease his hungry belly. Oliver alone did not sit, pacing a furrow in the sand.

'Right,' he said abruptly, as Madam Hooch signalled four minutes left above their heads. 'Potter and Bell.'

Katie wrenched her head up, blinking owlishly. George moved Harry's head like a puppet, bobbing it up and down.

'We're going to end this. It's going to take all of us. Bell, they'll be expecting Potter to make a break for it. You get as close as you can, Potter, draw their players, and then back-pass to Bell. Bell, they'll see the feint coming, so you're going to rise- and that's when you'll drop the Quaffle back to Potter. You can't get so high they'll intercept, and we're going to need more than our share of luck- Fred, George, I'll need you in position, swing those bats of yours like you never have before- Mo, the minute we've got a goal, you get that Snitch. All in?'

'All in,' everyone chorused, stumbling to their feet with the last of their vigour.

'Then do it!' Oliver ordered them, as Hooch blew her whistle for play to resume.

The Gryffindor team swung into motion. Angelina seized the Quaffle when Hooch threw it into their midst. She lost it to Adrian Pucey, who passed to Marcus Flint, who lost it when George batted a Bludger that shook his grip. Then Harry had the Quaffle, and he made his break, no time to lose- the element of surprise was on his side, the Slytherins still expecting them to be cautious. Mo and Higgins were locked elbow to elbow up above, cobbing each other viciously and racking up fouls as they wrestled in the air, but Harry put his head down and drove the Nimbus harder than he ever had, recklessly hard, suicidally hard. Katie could barely keep up with him, but that made it all the more surprising when Harry back-passed the Quaffle, and he heard the cries of the remaining students in the stands screaming all manner of contradictory advice- don't fall for it, it's a trick! Go, Katie, go! Watch out for Potter, he's- watch out for Weasley, he's- and Harry flipped on his broom to dangle upside down, ankles clenched about the stick and one hand freed as the Quaffle, a little red dot, began to fall from Katie's hands high overhead. George took out Marcus Flint, Fred was on Gert Quimbly, Adrian Pucey was-

Adrian Pucey came tumbling out of nowhere to slam full-force into Harry, shattering his hold on the Nimbus and sending him into a free-fall.

Harry hadn't even the breath to scream as the sand came rushing up at him. He squeezed his eyes shut, muscles seizing tight in one big clench even though some terrified rational part of his brain warned to him go limp, go limp, go-

Weightless. He bounced off the sand with a clatter of equipment, but not nearly so hard as he should have. And he didn't land again after, but floated above the sand, saved by Hooch's wand. He stared at the indent his body had left in the sand, a Harry-shaped hole that ought to have his body in it.

And then the cheer went up, a great swelling moan, and he flopped like a fish trying to flip himself over. Who had won? Who had won?

'SLYTHERIN WINS!' Lee Jordan hollered from the commentator's box, and Harry let his head fall back to hang in despair.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey insisted on seeing him in the infirmary, and Harry had started to come over sore and battered enough from his fall that he didn't, for once, protest her over-protectiveness. She sat him on a cot with bruise balm and a muscle relaxer, explaining as he sipped the oily nasty stuff that it was him going so tense that had hurt him, not to mention the bounce at the end, even if Hooch had been awfully quick with her feather-weight spell. Harry made a note to have Remus teach him that one over summer; he remembered Quirrell saying he'd already learnt it by Harry's age, and that made twice it would have saved him a fall. Three times, counting the one Cedric had rescued him from during the Hufflepuff match.

There were a few other routine check-ups for the rest of his team, and the Slytherins too- all of them were dyhdrated, Pomfrey chided the hospital in general- and Oliver needed a nerve tonic to stop sobbing into Percy's shoulder. The Gryffindors clapped each other on the back and slunk out one by one back to the dorms, where a consolation party would await them. The Slytherins were all in high spirits, and they carried Terrence Higgins out on their shoulders, plunging the hospital into quiet as they marched out singing the school song.

'You played well,' Draco said. Harry had seen him there with the other Slytherin reserve player, cheering on their mates though they hadn't participated in the game themselves. Only Draco had lingered.

'We knew it would come down to you,' Draco said, coming to stand before him. In his Slytherin green tunic and gear he made a neat picture of a triumphant hero, but there was something softer in his face that Harry hadn't seen before. 'Wood relies on your broom too much for his strategy. It was just a matter of waiting for the right moment.'

'It was a set-up,' Harry guessed wearily.

'Yes.' Draco rubbed his thumb along his knuckles, the only sign of anxiety in an otherwise relaxed posture. 'That doesn't mean you didn't play well.'

Harry found a laugh from somewhere inside him. 'Thanks,' he said, feeling a bit lighter. 'I did, didn't I.'

'Don't get arrogant.'

'I'm being gracious. You won your bet.'

'It was a sure thing. I would've bet higher, but I didn't want to tip Marcus off.'

'That, and he's your captain, and you want to play next year,' Harry reasoned. He grinned up at Draco. 'Such a Slytherin.'

'Always,' Draco said haughtily, but then he bent and kissed Harry's cheek. 'I'll like playing you, next year. You only know you're the best if you can beat the best.'

'Get on with you. Don't miss your party.'

Harry finished his water as Draco strode out, heels clacking ostentatiously. He was good to go at any time, but the potion had relaxed him as it was meant to do, and he didn't feel hurried. He greeted Hermione's entrance with fuzzy pleasure, asking, 'Did you see me fall?'

'I saw,' Hermione dismissed him, seating herself beside him. 'Harry, did Draco just kiss you?'

'Did he? I guess.' He met her sceptical stare. 'On the cheek, Hermione.'

'Still! Harry! Does he- You-Know-What?'

'Oh, not that game again, Hermione, honestly, I'm too tired.'

'Harry!' She swatted him. 'Does he _like you like that_.'

Oh. Harry supposed Remus and Sirius kissed, he'd seen that, but Draco hadn't kissed him on the mouth like they did. 'I dunno,' he said dubiously.

Hermione abruptly let it go, sagging against him with a sigh. It was well after midnight now, and with the long hours she'd had revising Harry supposed she was even more tired than he was. But she'd stayed the whole game. That was nice of her.

'Will you write me this summer?' he asked.

She curled her hands about his arm. 'Of course. Will you write me?'

'Prob'ly not,' he said. 'Ron definitely won't.'

'Don't tease.' She drooped her head to his shoulder. 'Ron really won't, will he.'

Harry grinned. 'No. Neville will.'

'That's right,' she murmured, cheered. 'Draco will write to you.'

Harry thought of the letter from Lucius Malfoy, inviting him to Malfoy Manor, for Draco's sake. 'Maybe,' he said.

'Can you believe it's almost all over?'

'Yes,' Harry said. 'Almost.'


	33. Colour The Sunset Sky

_In Which The End Is But A New Beginning._

Well, that was shot. Harry winced as his potion erupted with a resounding burp, releasing a vile stench of rotting shellfish and old toilet brush, with a hint of sour milk and dog breath for good measure.

'Good God, Potter,' Snape said, protecting his large nose from the odourous assault with the sleeve of his robe. He conjured a lid for Harry's cauldron, an event greeted with applause by the other students in the front rows. Even Hermione, the traitor, moaned in relief. Ron wrapped his tie about his face as a sort of mask and Neville was attempting to cram his entire head into his rucksack. Draco had given him up entirely and retreated at a run for the back of the classroom. Millie gagged into her hands, looking distinctly green.

'I might have added too much Flobberworm mucus,' Harry admitted sullenly.

'Troll,' Snape replied. 'Troll minus. Wait for it to cool and have Filch empty it straight into the sewage. I don't want it contaminating the groundwater.'

'It's not that bad,' Harry muttered. He doused the flame under his cauldron and dropped his chin on his folded arms to sulk.

'It is, mate,' Ron assured him, muffled behind his double-wrapped tie. 'It really, really is.'

No-one lingered after class, most thrilled to be done with their final Potions lab of the year and the rest retreating from the lingering traces of Harry's dismal effort, which hung miasma-like in the dank air of the dungeon. Snape summoned a stiff breeze as Harry washed out his cauldron at the sinks, and set a fat bundle of sage to burning in what Harry thought was a rather ostentaious display. Snape was sat at his desk marking by the time Harry finished, but still Harry dallied, taking his time packing up his books for the last time. Then he shuffled about picking up scraps of parchment and cleaning up a bit of dried-on mucus stuck to one of the desks, and then he just stood there shifting his weight from one foot to the other until Snape at last deigned to pay him any attention.

'Did I really get a Troll?' Harry asked.

'You ought to,' Snape said darkly. Harry hadn't even been able to bottle his potion. 'I _may_ ,' Snape added, eyes narrowed, ' _may_ consider raising you to a mere Poor, despite the blatant mistruth of that designation, if you could at least identify for me what you did wrong. It wasn't the Flobberworm mucus.'

Harry considered the board, which still bore the recipe as Snape had written it out at the start of the lab practical. 'I didn't properly dilute the base?' he said.

'Are you guessing, or is that your answer?'

Guessing. 'I didn't measure the-'

'Stop,' Snape ordered, holding up a hand. 'Potter, you're still making mistakes through inattention and ignorance. The only thing remotely interesting about that is the complete lack of consistency in the kind of mistakes you manage to make.' He marked Hermione's potion- it was an O, even if Snape seemed to grudge it a bit- and set it aside. 'I wish to extend your tutoring through the summer. I will write as much to your guardians. You will arrange a weekly session to last no less than seven hours, if you intend to succeed even minimally in Second Year Potions.'

'Minimally?' Harry protested. 'Seven hours a week?'

'No less than seven,' Snape re-iterated. 'It would take quite a bit longer to haul you up to competence, and no man alive has the time to devote to making you accomplished.' Snape unstoppered Goyle's potion, gave it a wincing sniff, and set it aside. 'I've seen sufficient evidence to substantiate your argument about the assumptions inherent in potion-making. Some have an instinctive grasp, and some don't, but you appear to be unable to bridge the gap through study. As you are not unintelligent-' Snape said this very grudgingly indeed. 'I must conclude you are either lazy or suffering some sort of mental block. Perhaps even a magical block related to suffering the Killing Curse as an infant, which appears to have manifested in your allergy as observed by Madam Pomfrey.'

Harry tried to parse that, wondering at it. 'You think my allergy's related to the Killing Curse?'

'I think we've no way of proving it one or another, as there is no other recorded instance of surviving the Curse, but that is my current theory.' Snape gave Draco's potion an O as well, and folded his hands neatly across the desktop. 'I haven't ruled out lazy, mind.'

Harry glared.

'I should like sufficient time to examine the matter this summer. I'd like to know, for instance, whether your other spellwork is similarly affected by this handicap. Minerva's reported your difficulty executing spells as required. Learning disabilities are not uncommon in children of certain backgrounds-'

That stung Harry. 'Just because you know about the Dursleys and Crowhill doesn't mean you should use it against me.'

Snape glared right back at him. 'You think you are the only half-blood from unfortunate circumstances? At least you're not inbred to the point of natural deficiency, or madness, like the Blacks. You have no long-standing bloodline curse like the Malfoys, no institutionalised prejudice or ossified moral judgement like those Purebloods running the country as a Victorian holdover. An issue with your spellcasting is hardly trivial, given your enemies, but there are far worse backgrounds than a Muggle orphanage. And may I remind you, young man, it is not just your enemies who will seek to use your secrets against you. I advise you to own your heritage with pride. If you have nothing of which to be ashamed, they will have nothing with which to injure your pride and provoke you into foolish action.' Snape turned his face away. 'Take it from one who knows all too personally, Potter.'

Harry fingered the hilt of his mum's wand. It warmed against his fingertips, a sweet whisper of magic in his mind. 'What if I don't ever get better? If whatever's wrong with me stays wrong forever.'

'Then you learn how to work around it. How to win in spite of it.'

'Win what?'

'Whatever comes,' Snape said, and his black eyes tilted up to Harry's.

* * *

At last exams were finished, the last classes dismissed. Their final day of school was an extravaganza of wonderful fun. Each House's Quidditch team performed a choice manoeuvre in the Pitch for roaring crowds; Harry found it thrilling, though tinged with sadness. He knew Sirius would fly with him any time he wanted over the summer, but it wouldn't be the same as at Hogwarts. And the castle looked just beautiful, turned out to its very best, decorated nearly as wonderfully as it had been at Christmas but all in the bright colours of the Houses, Hufflepuff's sunny yellow, Gryffindor's rich red, the velvety Slytherin green, Ravenclaw's royal blue. There was bunting draped on every archway, flowers strung on every stair, birds flocking to the feed houses and filling the air with song. It was summer in all its bloom, and Harry breathed deep of it, sealing it all in his memory to look back on with all the fondness he had developed despite the year's less wondrous adventures.

There were hundreds of good-byes repeated in the corridors. Sweethearts found dark niches to kiss desperately, mates pounded each other on the back. Harry had a final tea with Hagrid in his hut, at which Hagrid gifted him with more pictures for his album- some of his parents, which Harry received eagerly, but also some of Harry and his friends from his first year at Hogwarts. From Hermione he received a book- that was no surprise, but it was a good choice nonetheless, an interesting and not too large volume on Charms with excellent illustrations. Harry had spent a little of his vault's contents on gifts, himself, and was able to give Hermione an out-of-print edition of Hogwarts: A History with annotations by her favourite scholar, Elphias Doge. For Ron, he'd got a set of Muggle chessmen, and promised to be a better opponent by the start of September term. For Cedric, who had been late to the Knights of Jupiter but remarkably kind and capable, Harry could do little to improve his lot, so he gave (on Sirius's advice) a box of toys from Zonko's joke shop, to encourage him in the sort of troublemaking he'd need to be used to for next year's adventures. Harry had considered several options for Neville, everything from broom lessons to something in Latin since Neville had led their Latin Review all year, but nothing felt quite right. In the end, only one thing seemed appropriate, though it was paltry compared to the other gifts he'd given.

Still, the wide-eyed stare Neville gave him when Harry handed him one of the photographs from his parents' album assured him he'd made the right decision. 'F-for me?' Neville stuttered, gripping it in shaking hands.

'For you,' Harry said. He pointed over the rim. 'That's your mum and dad. I think our parents were friends in school. See, there's writing on the back.'

So there was, though Neville could hardly tear his eyes from the photograph to read it. At last, reluctantly, he flipped it. In girlish writing was a label. Neville read it aloud. '1976, Alice R. and Frank L. XX!'

It had torn Harry a bit to give up a picture of his mum, but he had many, and if he had to give one away, it was good to give it to someone who needed it so. Neville's face was luminous, and awed. 'I look like him,' he told Harry in a trembly voice. 'I didn't know that. I look like me dad.'

'Yeah,' Harry agreed, standing shoulder to shoulder with him so they could gaze together. 'Specially in the eyes.'

Neville flung his arms about Harry. Harry smiled.

Hard as it had been for Harry to think of a gift for Neville, Draco was the hardest. Draco had everything he could possibly want, and Harry remembered well the mass of gifts under that tall Christmas tree. After everything his Knights had been through a book on Quidditch didn't seem to encompass enough of the feeling Harry had about it all, and Draco already had a thousand chocolate frog cards, and wasn't the sort to enjoy Zonko's jokes. He was so stumped for ideas that he lost all opportunity to buy something by owl before the last day of school. He fell to staring into his trunk instead of packing, in fact, wishing it to produce something he could give as a last minute gift, but no ideas issued from the detritus of a year's schooling, broken quills and dirty shirts and rags with greasy polish from tending to his broom.

'Harry?' Ron and Dean poked their heads in on him. Both had packed with greater haste than Harry, throwing their belongings haphazardly into their trunk with no mind for space or order, and Harry thought they'd already been down to the Great Hall in hopes of snacks. 'You coming?' Ron asked.

'Yeah.' Nothing for it. Harry removed his pyjamas, to be worn one last time, and Muggle clothes for home-going on the Express. His grey old hoodie from Crowhill was as familiar as his own skin. Yet it no longer meant what it had always meant. He'd never go back there, never climb onto his bunk with Marcus snoring overhead and Gaz nattering on about whatever held his attention that minute. He'd never know what the older boys got up to in the loo after eight. He'd never fail another maths test. Harry grinned to himself. Well, too soon to promise that. It was just another hoodie, now, and not nice enough for anything but travel, so Harry removed a button-down shirt as well to wear for meeting Mr Flamel in the morning. He could shed it on the train to be comfortable.

'Yeah,' he repeated, and stood to fasten his Hogwarts robe one more time. 'I'm ready.'

The Great Hall was magnificent, with the dais cleared of the tables where the professors dined, turned into a stage for scrolls, plaques, even trophies to be handed out for Awards Day. There was the Quidditch Cup, awarded first, received by the Slytherin team, their captain Marcus Flint grinning irrepressibly in triumph and Snape gleaming with a cat's smug satisfaction. The Player of the Year award went to Mo Milai, who had distinguished himself despite losing the final game to Slytherin. Professor McGonagall was as pleased to award it as Mo was to receive it, and Oliver Wood cheered loudest, starting up a chant for his Seeker that Harry joined happily. Each team gave an award for Best Contribution By A Player, and Harry flushed in astonishment to hear his name called for Gryffindor. As prize, Oliver awarded him both a certificate and a new set of leather goggles which, Oliver winked at the audience of tittering students, could be worn over glasses. After the Sports Awards, there were Achievements in Academics. Hermione was a shoo-in for High Achievement: First Year, and her cheeks were prettily pinked as she collected the award from the Headmaster, who praised her noble zeal for learning with a winking reference to her 'extra-curricular' study of magical mysteries. There was the Most Improved awards and the Excellence in various subjects awards, Writing Achievement awards and Best Assignment awards and the crowning event of that round, the School Valedictorian and Salutatorian, which always went to two seventh year students of course, one of whom was the Head Girl and wept a little as she received it, no doubt from utter exhaustion.

After the Academics awards there came a number of awards with titles like Hardest Worker, Most Responsible- Percy got that one, and Harry clapped heartily for him- Happiest Attitude, Deepest Thinker, Most Curious, Brightest Smile- Lockhart presented it, and jokingly pretended to award it to himself, ha- _ha!_ , before handing it over to Cedric, who looked ready to die of embarrassment. The Class Clown award was divided jointly between the Weasley twins Fred and George, who, Dumbledore added, were receiving it for the third time, a school record. Every award came with five points to the receiver's house, even, Dumbledore said, the Class Clown award, which was a good thing since between them the twins had also lost an astounding one hundred fifty three points over the course of the year, and needed all the balancing out they could get. The final round of awards were for Quality. There was Patience- a Ravenclaw- Perseverance, to, no surprise, a Hufflepuff- Humour, which went, rather surprisingly, to a Slytherin fifth year, who cracked as he received it that his mum would like it better than last year's Lost Cause award. Harry was called back on stage for Integrity, and he stumbled up the steps, baffled and amazed, to have Dumbledore hold his hand and gaze down at him over the gold rims of his spectacles and say, between just the two of them, that it was well-earned. But the final award of the year was for True Friendship, and no-one was more surprised to hear his name called than Draco Malfoy.

'The breaking of barriers is never an easy thing,' Dumbledore said, as Draco, pale-faced and dazed, crossed a very silent Hall to mount the stage. 'To engage with new ideas is to challenge what one believes. To risk your comfort and your conscience for another is to throw your heart into the breach. To do it all and stand strong is to be a true friend. This award, my dear boy, is much deserved.'

'Bet his daddy paid Dumbledore to give him that,' someone muttered, and a giggle passed up the table.

Harry shoved to his feet and applauded. There was a little start amongst the students, even amongst the teachers; Snape's head swivelled toward him. The Slytherins caught on quick, right enough, and clapped for Draco, some even whooping and hollering as the rest of the Houses joined in. 'When's the last time a Slytherin got an award for friendship, you reckon?' Oliver wondered, but on stage Draco, heartened by his delayed reception, accepted the scroll from Dumbledore and walked away proud. Harry grinned and waved at him.

When the fuss had quietened down Dumbledore raised his arms, his billowy sleeves falling back in silvery waves. 'This was a trying year for Hogwarts,' he said, his voice soft and yet reaching every nook and cranny of the Hall. 'The betrayal of one of our own must always pain us, for ours is a community, a family, which for all its rivalries and occasional squabbles is never more united than in the trust we extend to all those who join us within these walls. Yet we have rallied from Quirrell's loss, and we close this year the stronger for having been tested. My students are my greatest pride. And as you are also my greatest responsibility, I swear to you all that next year we will be stronger, swifter, safer, and, most of all, the wiser for what we have experienced this year. I send you back out into the world with my thanks, more grateful than ever before to know what marvels you are capable of achieving.'

Dumbledore brought his wizened hands together, gazing down at them in a silence that held, stretched, til the students began to whisper and speculate. Everyone fell dead stop when Dumbledore at last raised his head.

'I regret ending on a note of grief,' he said, 'but I am afraid I must. It is my sad duty to inform you all of the loss of one of the greatest members of our magical community. Nicolas Flamel, known to many as the Philosopher, has parted the Veil and begun his great exploration of the Beyond. Though it has been many years since Nicolas graced us with a guest lecture, he left his mark on Hogwarts throughout the centuries, providing mentorship to hungry young minds and his great wisdom to hungry young hearts. I believe a formal announcement will go out to the news in short order, but for those who knew him, this is a sad day indeed.'

Harry felt numbness spreading through his chest. He sank back onto his seat, a great fog filling up his ears. Dumbledore's words seemed very far away, echoes lost in the mountains, and even Hermione's hand on his arm and Ron's squeezing his shoulder barely registered. 'But he was coming tomorrow,' he heard himself say. 'Tomorrow's the seventeenth.'

'But for now,' Dumbledore went on, 'we set aside our grief and celebrate our accomplishments. I have one final award to deliver: the House Cup.'

'Harry?' Ron said, and all his friends were looking at him, even Cedric and Draco from their tables.

Harry closed his eyes. 'He got rid of the Stone,' he said. 'He said in his letter they'd put it somewhere no-one could get it. But there is no place like that. I should have- They've destroyed it.'

'But without the Stone, he can't make the tincture of Immortality,' Hermione reasoned. 'Oh. Oh, Harry, I'm sorry.'

'But why'd he say he was coming? He said he was coming.'

'He must've thought he would make it that long.'

'Slytherin have had an excellent run these past six years,' Dumbledore was saying. 'A winning streak of fine scholarship, cool-headed behaviour in the halls, an ethos of hard work and close relationships, and prizing above all else the Slytherin code of family first. To Slytherin, I offer my congratulations. Once again, you have modelled for your fellow students the pathway to success. The Great Hall is hung with your colours once again to celebrate your great achievement: five hundred and thirty-two points.'

Someone at the Slytherin table released a whoop, and then they were all cheering for themselves. The other Houses clapped along dispiritedly. Ron glowered, muttering to himself, and even Hermione was downcast. Percy was patting Oliver on the knee.

'But,' Dumbledore said, and the cheering at the Slytherin table abruptly halted. 'There are, I fear, some last-minute points to be awarded.'

That set up a buzz that even Harry in his daze noticed. He lifted his head to see Gryffindors lighting up in excitement, Slytherins scowling uncertainly.

'On the night of the murder of unicorns in the Forbidden Forest,' Dumbledore said, plunging everyone back into silence, 'a great many heroics were performed which ultimately saved many lives within this school. If I could award points to your professors, I would happily do so, for they performed a great and selfless service on behalf of their young charges, enforcing calm, securing our premises, and daring to venture out of doors to confront the Dementors to get a message to the Ministry. But whilst professors are not eligible for points, students are, and there were heroics performed amongst our students as well in the face of grave and disquieting danger. All of this happened, of course, in the strictest of secrecy; naturally, therefore, many of you are already quite aware of the details. So. To Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Draco Malfoy, and Cedric Diggory, I gladly award fifty points each, for their role in confronting Quirinus Quirrell and bringing the innocence of Sirius Black to light.'

The pitch of excitement rose even louder than the scattered applause as everyone desperately calculated what this meant for points. Hufflepuff had been in a tie with Ravenclaw, and Cedric's fifty put them ahead, that was easy enough, but- 'A hundred fifty points to Gryffindor!' Hermione hissed. 'And fifty to Slytherin, that gives them five hundred eighty-two, that's still not enough to change the lead-'

'Lastly, but hardly the least, I have ten more points to award.' Dumbledore paused, perhaps to meet the blazing eyes of Severus Snape, who stood rigid beneath a Slytherin banner looking fit to spit nails. 'To Harry Potter, for displaying qualities of logic and deduction, of leadership, of the integrity for which he has already been noted, and for a quality quite unique in our complicated world: a purity of love to which all should aspire. You have our gratitude, Mr Potter.'

Every head in the place swivelled to Harry. He blinked back at them, heat creeping into his ears and cheeks. Applause started raggedly and died out oddly, but everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

'If my calculations are correct,' Dumbledore added lightly, 'I believe a change in decoration may be in order.'

'We won!' Neville gasped. 'Harry, we won, look-'

Magic rippled out from Dumbledore's upraised wand. The banners shivered and shuddered, and, all in a wave, the green bled away, the serpents faded, and in their place roared the Gryffindor lions.

'No!' the Slytherins were crying in dismay, but cheers erupted from the Gryffindors, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were joining in, more glad to see Slytherin's streak broken than for Gryffindor's sake alone. Snape whirled about in a rage and bent down to whisper furiously with Slytherin's prefects, who got control of their dismayed comrades right quick. To a one, Slytherin sat cold-faced and silent, even, Harry saw, Millie and Theo and Draco, who refused to look at him.

'And now,' Dumbledore said, 'we feast. Spend an hour or two remiscining our joys, and plan for our rest and rejuvenation over the summer. When we reunite in this Hall next term, dear friends, we will do so ready and eager for a new year. But for now, for now, we eat.' He clapped his hands, and trays of food appeared in a shower of sparks atop the tables. The Leaving Feast was a spectacle of towering trees of brussels sprouts, vats of whipped potatoes, trussed turkeys and frenched lamb and candied hams, and unbelievable quantities of sweetmeats, frosted cakes, and bread pudding- Harry had mentioned in passing to one of the house elves that Cedric quite liked their bread pudding, so Hufflepuff had an especially large variety, vanilla cream and German black bread and coconut rum and rhubarb and and apple and mincemeat and chocolate and Ron looked about with covetous eyes, but stayed himself from grabbing a plate to spoon up.

'Harry?' he said.

'We won!' Hermione was squealing, but then a shadow crossed her face. 'Oh, but... but that wasn't fair, was it? To take it away from them like that.'

No. No, it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair Snape was glaring at Harry like it was all Harry's fault. Like he'd done it on purpose, solicited those points just to make Slytherin lose. Harry tried to catch his eye, catch Draco's, but they wouldn't look at him. They turned their backs entirely to the Gryffindor table, and Harry saw Draco discard his scroll for True Friendship onto the ground.

No, Harry thought, that wasn't fair. He didn't know what Dumbledore meant by it, either, but it seemed awfully canny, nonetheless. The most clever kind of politics, really. Or maybe the least clever. Dumbledore had just got finished calling Harry a leader, and in the next breath ensured Harry couldn't even talk to anyone not in Gryffindor.

'I guess we should eat?' Neville asked uncertainly. 'Harry?'

'I'm not hungry,' he said, and pushed his empty plate away.

* * *

'Can you believe we're really leaving?' Hermione chattered, as they shuffled up the corridor. 'I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe a whole year's gone by- well, nine months.'

'Yeah,' Harry said, distracted. 'Do you see Draco? I thought- hoped he'd sit with us.'

'He's back with the Slytherins, o' course,' Ron said, tall enough to see over hundreds of heads to check. 'I think they're taking the piss on him. True Friendship. If his daddy did pay for that award, shouldn't've paid for a naffer.'

Hermione pointed out a cabin ahead. 'That one's empty. We can get to it before- oh, blast, those Ravenclaws just went in.'

'Head for the back,' Neville advised, and they fought their way up the carpeted corridor of the Express checking every compartment for occupants. Ron got ahead and tried to save one for them, only to get bullied aside by some seventh years who wouldn't let a firstie block them out.

'Draco?' Harry called, but the blonde head he'd espied wasn't Draco at all, it was a girl who glanced over her shoulder at him and went on, undeterred.

'Harry, I don't think he's coming,' Neville said quietly. Harry nodded glumly. He'd looked for Draco at breakfast, too, a chaotic swirl of students in last-minute good-byes scrambling to get a bite of egg or toast before the long train journey. He hadn't seen Draco at all, though Millie and Theo had been there, and Goyle and Crabbe too, all ignoring Harry as he hovered awkwardly near their table, uncertain he ought to press them for information- not wanting to hear them reject him, when it was clear they would.

'Harry!'

People had been calling his name all morning. There was a last-minute run on signatures and photographs and the like- Harry had been caught by a few cameras and was sure there'd be a ream of pictures of him blinking owlishly and gawping stupidly- Lockhart had been trying to get at him too during breakfast, and Harry had solved that issue by simply running in the opposite direction, dignity be damned. But this voice was one Harry would know anywhere, drawling and arrogant and self-assured enough to holler over the rabble knowing every eye in the place would be on him.

'Draco,' Harry said, relief washing over him. He charged up the corridor and ran at his friend. Draco side-stepped his hold, however, ducking into a compartment and pulling Harry in after him. No sooner had Harry followed him in then Draco slammed the door shut and drew the curtain.

'The governors are meeting today,' Draco said. 'The school governors.'

'Then why're you on the train if your dad could just Apparate you home?'

'To fetch you, you great noodle.' Draco gazed at him with exasperation. 'They're voting on whether to censure Dumbledore.'

'What- wait, what?'

'They're voting,' Draco said impatiently, 'on whether to censure Dumbledore for bringing the Stone to Hogwarts. For endangering everyone. And they've summoned Nicolas Flamel to testify.'

'But he's-'

'Harry,' Draco said, gripping him by the shoulders. 'He's not. That's the thing. He's not dead. They've put it about he died, but I saw the summons in my father's dossier-'

'You snoop on your own father?'

'Obviously,' Draco dismissed that immediately. 'The school governors are babies compared to most politicians, they don't even classify sensitive information. It's the government who decided to put it out about Flamel, but they gave a copy to- look, it's not important.'

'You mean you want to keep it a secret in case you need to use it later,' Harry translated.

Draco let him go abruptly, with a small smile curling one side of his mouth. 'You've learnt after all.'

'Learning disability aside.'

'What?'

'Draco- you know what the Hat told me?'

'What?' Draco said, bewildered. 'What hat?'

'The Sorting Hat. It wanted to put me in Slytherin- and you're the only one I've ever told, so if it gets out I'll know it was you who told it.'

'Harry Potter in Slytherin?' Draco said, disbelieving. 'The bloody world would end.'

'Would've been easier for you lot, having to get close to me and befriend me. I don't suppose I really knew how difficult that was, having to be clever instead of being yourselves.'

'Maybe it's a stretch for you, Potter, but a real Slytherin can be clever and themselves at once.'

Harry smiled. 'Yeah,' he said. 'Reckon I'm better off where I am, then.' He put his arms about Draco gingerly. Hugging didn't come naturally to him, and Draco went stiff and surprised anyway, leaning out of it, so it was altogether a wretched affair, and he was off his balance leaning over like that and stumbled stepping away, biting his lip. But after he'd been released, Draco smiled, just a little, his cheeks tinged pink.

'Don't change,' Harry said, 'except for that perfume. Definitely change that.'

'Go,' Draco answered, rolling his eyes.

Harry slithered past his friends and hurtled for the nearest door. Hermione was hollering after him, and Hagrid too- ''Arry, yer goin' the wrong way!'- but Harry ran pell-mell for the station gates. There! The carriages were already on their way back to Hogwarts, drawn by the strange corpse-like horses Hagrid said were Thestrals. Harry took a flying leap onto the nearest cart, scraping his palm grabbing for a rail. 'Can you go faster?' he begged the Thestrals, which trotted along at the same sedate pace they used when the carts were full of students. One turned its spindly neck to peer back at Harry. 'Please,' Harry pleaded, and it whickered with a waft of rotting breath, and did indeed pick up its pace. 'Thanks,' Harry gasped, clinging to the rail as the carriage lurched forward.

The trip from Hogsmeade Station back to Hogwarts was agony, but that was nothing to the frustration of hurtling through an empty castle without a clue where he was meant to be going. Harry checked the Great Hall first, only to find it bare of all furniture and in the middle of a scrub-down, only elves in evidence. No professors and, most importantly, no Flamel in sight. Would the Headmaster know? Harry took off for his office, pounding up several flights of stairs and down endless corridors at a mad run that came to an abrupt halt before the gargoyles guarding the Headmaster's magical escalator. He didn't know the password- but while he fishmouthed, the gargoyles ceded their duty without protest, and the door opened for him. Harry didn't linger to be surprised. He took the stairs at a gallop.

It wasn't actually possible to go storming into Dumbledore's office- magical doors didn't take to slamming the way Muggle ones could be counted upon to do so satisfyingly. Deprived of that outlet, Harry settled for hammering the door with his fist as it slid politely aside for him; consequently the occupants of the office were quite aware of his arrival, all ten or twelve of them, and Harry came up short in shock and embarrassment faced with the lot of school governors.

'Do come in,' said Dumbledore quite calmly, as Harry flushed and stammered his apology.

'Master Harry,' Mr Malfoy spoke up abruptly, rising to his feet from the arc of chairs and bowing deeply. This was very nearly as humiliating as bursting in on a meeting of the entire school's governing body. Harry's face flamed hotly.

'I... I was...' he croaked. 'I thought...'

'You wished to speak privately?' Dumbledore prompted him, smiling his genial smile. 'An urgent matter, I must presume, given the imminent departure of the Express.'

'No, I don't want you- I mean,' Harry bit his lip. That hadn't come out at all the way he wished. 'I mean, I was hoping Nicolas Flamel was still here.'

'Ah.' Dumbledore began to twist the tip of his beard the way he did when he was thinking. 'The gig is up, I see. I'm afraid Nicolas has already said his farewells.'

Harry sagged, the last of his fight stolen. 'Oh,' he said miserably.

'However, I believe he planned a stop by the Library before he left. As you are very fleet of foot, young Harry, I imagine you have a chance of catching him up.'

'Thanks, sir! Er... sorry,' he told the governors, and tried a bow like Mr Malfoy, though he didn't know how it was meant to be done properly and it felt very awkward to fold in half like that, and he didn't know what to do with his hands. He broke and ran for the stairs, taking them at a run and jumping the landing so he didn't have to wait for them to roll him down per usual.

Fleet of foot or no, the sprint to the Library about wore him out. Harry was panting as he hurtled through the Library's double-wide doors. A quick scan proved Madam Pince the librarian was not at her desk, nor anywhere immediately noticeable, so Harry took a risk and hollered, 'Mr Flamel! Mr Flamel, are you still here?'

Something scurried on small feet, a very distinct sound in the echoingly empty library. Pets weren't allowed inside, for fear they'd chew the books, but something had got in, clearly. Harry hurried up the central aisle, peering quickly right and left into the carrels where students had piled up tomes for study all year and which now sat empty, already collecting a thin veneer of dust. There was a book sitting out on the table where Harry and the others had held their Latin sessions, and he jumped for it, sure it would be a clue, but it was just a fifth year Arithmancy text, evidently left behind by accident.

'Harry?'

He whirled, only to sag in disappointment. It wasn't Flamel. It was Remus. But- 'Hang on, why're you here?' he wondered.

'I had my interview with the governors. It was last minute, and a formality besides, or I'd've told you I was coming.' Remus took the book from him, pragmatically checking the front inside cover. 'Audrey Finch?'

'I think she's a Hufflepuff.'

'There's usually a week of owls back and forth to the school after close of term, conveying the forgotten or lost items home to their rightful owners. The house elves will see it returned.' Remus hugged the book loosely to his chest, mauling his lower lip in an unusual show of uncertainty. 'Are you all right, Harry?'

The question was magical. In the worst way. Harry scraped his sleeve across his eyes, discovering them wet and stinging suddenly. 'Is it true Mr Flamel gave away the last of his tincture to Mr Malfoy? And now with the Stone gone he'll never be able to make more?'

Remus nodded silently.

'Well he shouldn't've! Why would he do that? He'll- he'll die, won't he?'

'It wasn't done by accident or ignorance, Harry. He must have done it because he wanted to help you, and believed you worthy of it.'

'Well... well, I'm not. Not worthy of that. He's important, and I'm-'

'Important,' Remus said, and took a step toward him. 'You are, Harry. To all of us.'

'Because I'm the Boy Who Lived,' Harry spat bitterly.

'Because you're our Harry.' Remus put an arm about his shoulders and drew him in unwillingly, but Harry met Remus's rumpled shirt and closed his eyes against it. Remus's fingers carded his hair slowly. 'I can't be sorry he's done it,' Remus murmured. 'Not if it kept you safe and whole. I'm incredibly grateful to him, but I can't wish it undone.'

'Blurrrrp.'

It was Fawkes. 'How'd you get in here?' Harry wondered, stepping back from Remus with a swipe at his leaky eyes. Fawkes came coasting in on his stumpy young wings, alighting on Harry's shoulder and immediately yanking at the stem of Harry's glasses with his beak. Harry took them off to allow Fawkes to play, glad once again Snape had charmed them not to break easily. Specially as Fawkes promptly dropped them on the floor, and scolded Harry roundly for bending down with a sigh to pick them up.

'I believe our friendly phoenix has free reign of the school when students are no longer in residence,' said a new voice, and Harry jammed his glasses back on to see Flamel following Fawkes into the Library.

'Sir!' Harry hurried toward Flamel, with Fawkes complaining about every jolting step as the bird wobbled along, claws pinching for balance on Harry's shoulder. Flamel smiled as Harry neared, but Harry himself was slowing up, stricken to see that Flamel had aged seemingly overnight. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard had gone snowy white, and the crows' feet at his eyes had become a web of wrinkles. His hands, which had looked so young before, were now the hands of an old man, spotted and thin with frail browning nails and swollen knuckles.

'Sir,' Harry whispered, throat closing tight and sore.

'Won't you sit, sir,' Remus invited quietly, drawing out a chair for Flamel, and fetching as well a footstool for Flamel to prop his boots upon. Without being asked, Remus brought a chair for Harry, as well, and Harry plopped onto the seat, forgetting to thank him in his upset. Remus didn't remind him, fading back to stand against a bookcase, near enough to speak but choosing only to listen. Except that Harry didn't know what to say at all. He stared at his hands, wishing they held the answers. Or at least the right questions.

'You are upset, Master Harry?'

'Please don't call me that.' Harry sucked in a deep breath. 'I still don't really understand the Diamond Soul business, but I'm not a master of anything.'

'Yet,' Flamel said calmly. 'In truth, I think you will be a very great wizard, Harry. Perhaps the greatest wizard of any age. I have known more than my share of wizards, you realise. I am well equipped to judge- and, being an old man, I am more than happy to share my opinion, whether it is requested or no.'

'How can you joke?' Harry demanded, appalled. 'You're... you're dying.'

'Not at this very moment,' Flamel shrugged in his Gallic way, a little lift of his hands, 'though, you are correct, it is my ultimate fate. It is the fate of all men.'

'But it wouldn't have been if you'd just kept the Stone!'

'Harry.' The wrinkles at Flamel's eyes and mouth deepened as he smiled again. 'I have very much enjoyed meeting you, my dear child. You have reminded me there is a great deal of difference between immortal life, and living. Despite my long efforts at cheating Death, I don't fear it. It will be like... it will be like greeting an old friend whose return has been long anticipated, and who will now be welcome indeed.'

Harry shook his head, unable to understand, unable to clear it enough to persuade Flamel that if he just listened- 'There has to be something we can do, though. What about Perenelle?'

'It is her decision as much as it is mine.' Flamel considered him. After a moment, he stood, or began to; he sank back into his chair with a weary sigh, and gestured Remus near. 'Would you be so kind to bring me Colignere's History of Magery,' he requested, and Remus nodded and departed at once. 'What have you learnt about war in your schooling, Harry? Muggle or magical war.'

'There's lots of them, I don't know.'

'About the great power mankind has to inflict suffering on itself.' Flamel waited, it seemed, for an answer, but Harry shook his head, refusing. 'I saw my first war when I was about your Professor Lupin's age. I was full grown for my time, but I knew little about the endless capacity of man's rage. I saw the most incredible depravity during the Crusades. Men who killed for gold, men who killed because they were ordered to, men who killed because they liked to. Men who inflicted death only as a relief from the suffering of rape and ravagement. Men who spit children younger than yourself on their swords with no greater grief than you would feel for stepping on an ant. That was a war for a kind of immortality: the belief that to be the Chosen of God secured the immortal soul. Imagine the war that will be fought for the kind of immortality the Stone brings.'

'But he didn't get it,' Harry tried, futile as it felt. 'He did everything he could and it wasn't enough.'

'That was not everything,' Flamel said very gently. 'That was only a beginning. A first strike. He will do more, and he will do worse, and it would be selfish, and very unwise indeed, to keep the Stone knowing what will come. Ah, Professor, thank you.'

Remus had returned. He carried a very large book, not as thick as Hogwarts: A History, but wide and tall, like an atlas. He laid it on the table and opened the long pages, apparently sure of what he was looking for. When he had found it, about two-thirds of the way through, he motioned for Harry, and stood behind him with his hands on Harry's shoulders as Harry bent over it to read.

'I've heard of Grindelwald,' Harry acknowledged reluctantly. 'Dumbledore defeated him a long time ago. It's why Dumbledore's a famous warlock.'

'You may have noticed that wizards here tend to refer to the "entire Wizarding World" as if none existed outside Britain's shores,' Flamel mused. 'In fact there are as many kinds of wizards as there are kinds of Muggles. And one cannot forget there is a magical world beyond wizards, as well. There are a thousand magical creatures, and many with societies all their own, cultures their own, histories of their own. The war Grindelwald waged against wizards and creatures and Muggles alike consumed everything. Not just Britain, not just Europe, but the entire world. The atrocities of that war made my petty crusade a mere footnote of human cruelty. And all Grindelwald wanted was power. If he had wanted immortality, and tried to achieve it as Voldemort has done- and, crucially, Harry, if he had done it before he faced Albus Dumbledore on the duelling grounds- he would have won. Voldemort may very well have learnt from this lesson. And that is why there is no greater weapon than to remove weapons from the reach of those who would use them.'

Remus's hands were warm on his shoulders. He had missed that, he thought dimly. Feeling like someone else knew what they were about. Like an adult would take care of things, the things above Harry's head, the things too big for a boy. But Harry wasn't a little boy any longer. He did understand.

'I'll miss you,' he said, and if his voice wobbled a bit, well. The rest of him felt wobbly, too.

Flamel smiled. He put out a hand, and Harry took it. 'I will miss you, too, Harry.' He angled his eyes up to Remus. 'He is an impressive young man. You have taken on the most important task of your life, safeguarding this young treasure.'

'I can't imagine how empty my life would have been if I hadn't,' Remus murmured.

* * *

Remus offered to bring him straight home, but Harry declined. He wanted to make the train journey with his friends, and Sirius would pick him up in London.

The Express had delayed long enough for Harry to board at Hogsmeade- mechanical failure of some sort, reported a bewildered Neville, which miraculously resolved the moment Harry was settled. For a time, Harry only sat quietly, resting his head on a cushion and watching the scenery pass him by. But the arrival of the trolley witch with her cart of treats prodded some activity, and he bought a round of cauldron cakes for everyone, and Ron took that as a sign they could relax a bit, at last, and he started up a game of Exploding Snap, and then everything was a bit of a party, Harry watching fondly and not involving himself much as students came in and out, exchanging addresses for summer correspondence, returning borrowed items- Harry even leafed through one of the Muggle teen mags Hermione was returned by Cedric, who thanked her profusely and looked forward to seeing more next fall.

Draco turned up eventually, dragging Theo and Millie, and Millie finally asked him on that date after all, which Harry took to be forgiveness for Slytherin losing the House Cup in a coup. He accepted, and promised to write with a day and time, to meet in Diagon Alley for an ice cream at Florean's. He thought he might even ask Millie back with him to Beddgelert- she'd like the Turkish Moonflower at Glaslyn's Ices. He invited everyone, in fact, rather enjoying the thrill of being openly able to do so. No more secrets, not now, and he thought he might finally have reached a point of being able to be himself, at last. It was a good feeling.

'I can help you with your Potions over the summer,' Draco said, between losing a round of Snap with Ron and opening his newest chocolate frog card from the trolley witch's supply. 'Snape's better one-on-one. He's my godfather, you know.'

'Your _what_?' Ron demanded. He scrunched up his nose. 'What's _that_ like, then?'

Draco shrugged. 'He's all right,' was all he'd say. 'Ugh.' He nearly tossed the card away, then stopped himself. 'Here,' he said indifferently, and gave it to Neville. 'Godric Gryffindor, I've got three of him already.'

'Oh. Th-thanks, Draco.' Neville reached into his bag, and fished out his own collection. 'I could trade you a Gwendolyn Morgan. She's rare, that limited edition _Quidditch Through the Ages_ collection.'

Harry nudged Draco with his ankle. He smiled. Draco rolled his eyes, but nudged him back, and they were all right.

'I'm going to miss you all so much,' Hermione said, tearing up, when the announcer informed them they were only an hour out of London.

'It won't be long,' Harry said. 'You'll see.'

'Promise you won't do anything fun without us, Harry,' Ron demanded. 'You know without us there you'd get into trouble.'

'I know,' Harry conceded. He put his hand out, and Ron covered it, and Hermione, and Neville and Ron and Cedric and Draco last, his Knights, all of them. 'Til next year,' he said, and they grinned at each other. 'To plans.'

'Here here,' they seconded, and broke.


End file.
